Dr. Maximilian Mayer is junior-professor of international relations and global politics of Technology at the University of Bonn. He was assistant professor at the University of Nottingham in Ningbo, China (2019–2020). He was also a research fellow at Renmin University in Beijing (2018–2020), worked as research professor at Tongji University in Shanghai (2015–18) and was senior researcher at the Munich Center for Technology in Society, Technical University Munich (2018–19). Maximilian worked at Bonn University’s Center for Global Studies as managing assistant and senior fellow (2009–2015). Maximilian holds a masters degree from Ruhr University Bochum and obtained his PhD at Bonn University. His research interests include the global politics of science, innovation, and technology; China’s foreign and energy policy; global energy and climate politics; and theories of international relations.

Maximilian presents regularly at international conferences, publishes his research in peer-reviewed journals, and has authored or edited seven books including China’s Energy Thirst: Myth or Reality? (2007, together with Xuewu Gu); Changing Orders: Transdisciplinary Analysis of Global and Local Realities (2008, coediter); two-volumes of The Global Politics of Science and Technology (2014, lead editor); Art and Sovereignty in Global Politics (2016, coeditor); and Rethinking the Silk-Road: China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Emerging Eurasian Relations (2018, lead editor). Maximilian was a visiting scholar at the Harvard Kennedy School’s program on Science, Technology and Society, and section co-chair of Science, Technology, Arts and International Relations, or STAIR, of the International Studies Association (2015–17) and program chair (2014–15). Furthermore, he is part of the research group The Second Cold War Observatory.