Rouven Symank

Research interests: Solidarity and Justice; Cultural heritage and global politics; International norms and institutions; European integration and transnational governance; Modern and contemporary political thought; Comparative political and social theory; Normative political analysis; and Qualitative methods.

Bio: Rouven Symank is a postdoctoral researcher at the SCRIPTS Cluster of Excellence, hosted by Freie Universität Berlin. His research combines political theory with qualitative methods to explore questions of solidarity, justice, and the challenges facing democracy.

At the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (CES), Symank will work on a manuscript entitled “The Global Politics of Cultural Restitution,” which analyzes the return of cultural heritage as a site of international norm contestation and a catalyst for deeper normative debates on property, justice, and historical reconciliation.

Symank holds a Ph.D. in political and social sciences from the European University Institute, an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and an M.A. from Humboldt University of Berlin. He previously held visiting research positions at University of Oxford, Sciences Po Paris, and University of California, Berkeley.

Symank currently serves as lead editor of a peer-reviewed special issue on cultural policy and as principal investigator of a project named “Restitution Think Tank” which is funded by the Berlin University Alliance (BUA). Outside of academia, he has worked in management consulting and public policy, including as a Carlo-Schmid Fellow at the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs in New York.

This information is accurate as of the affiliate year indicated. (last updated 08.31.2026)