The ISS mourns the death of Prof. Dr. Hans-Jürgen Andreß

After a long, serious illness, Prof. Dr. Hans-Jürgen Andreß passed away on August 17, 2020,one month before his 68th birthday. His much too early death did not come as a surprise, but nevertheless leaves us stunned. After longer periods in Frankfurt and Bielefeld, Hans-Jürgen's career finally led him to Cologne in 2003, where he held the newly created chair of Empirical Social and Economic Research until his retirement.He was always driven by a substantive interest in social and sociological questions, for the answering of which sound methodological knowledge - as he quickly recognized for himself - is indispensable. The title of the commemorative volume published on the occasion of his 65th birthday, "Living Conditions in Germany from a Longitudinal Perspective," sums up the core of his substantive and methodological work. These have contributed significantly to the establishment of longitudinal research in sociology as well as its anchoring in teaching. The increasingly important orientation towards impact factors and research rankings, on the other hand, remained alien to Hans-Jürgen. Nevertheless, he has always supported the ISS critically, constructively, and energetically on its way to its current national top position (measured by these criteria). In addition to his research achievements, his extremely successful commitment to the promotion of young scientists is particularly noteworthy: Institutionally as head of the DFG Research Training Group "Social Order and Life Chances in Cross-National Comparison" (SOCLIFE), which he initiated together with Heiner Meulemann, but above all through his persistent personal 'caring' for his students*. Hans-Jürgen was an outstanding teacher. He was also closely associated with the Cologne Journal of Sociology and Social Psychology: As Managing Editor (a post he was only able to hold briefly, in 2016-17, due to illness), as co-editor of the special volume "Cross-National Comparative Research" (2019), and - last but not least - as an author (most recently with an article co-authored with Romana Careja and Marco Giesselmann on the low-wage risk of migrants in times of xenophobic attitudes in the new issue of KZfSS). Despite his serious illness and the limitations it imposed on his daily life, Hans-Jürgen remained active in research at a high level until the very end, preserving for himself and for us his characteristic good humor. Because he would probably (and rightly) find it a pity if we would only pay tribute to his work here, please let everyone now think of a nice personal experience with HJA - and remember him that way! Hans-Jürgen Andreß will be greatly missed as an extraordinary friend, mentor and colleague. Our thoughts and sympathies go out to his family.