New Social Sciences Leadership from autumn 2026

On 9 December 2025 the Goetheanum Leadership accepted the proposal of the search committee to nominate Johannes Kronenberg and Gerald Schuster as successors of Gerald Häfner in the leadership of the Social Sciences Section from the autumn of 2026.

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The Section for Social Sciences is a specialist field that also concerns every human being, because we live in a social context from our first breath to our last. At the same time, the trends towards both isolation and a mass society are becoming more real every day. How can a healthy social life be developed in a practical way in our polarized societies, in families, enterprises, associations, countries and on the planet we share?

The scope of the Section for Social Sciences is wide and diverse. Can one person alone take on the leadership for all of it? After meeting the candidates (page 7), the search committee chose two very different individuals for a leadership team:

Gerhard Schuster, 52, an Austrian from Vienna, has worked and researched actively in the social context all his life. He is a co-worker of the Achberg Centre for Freedom, Democracy and Global Solidarity and currently self-employed working on projects on behalf of the Austrian Ministry of Education. He is also a member of the convention for the renewal of the constitution of the General Anthroposophical Society.

Johannes Kronenberg, 34, from the Netherlands has worked at the Goetheanum for seven years. He is co-editor of the book On the Earth We Want to Live about the contribution of anthroposophy to sustainable development published by Springer Press.

The Goetheanum Leadership invited both to their retreat. No woman? No one from outside Europe? No outreach social worker? No economist? The Section’s wide scope has become apparent again, as has its need for people who are dedicated and willing and able to work from the Goetheanum. This is where the mutually complementing strengths of Gerhard Schuster and Johannes Kronenberg come in and this is how they have come to be nominated unanimously as co-leaders by the Goetheanum Leadership.

We are looking forward to working with both of them from September 2026 and to our remaining collaboration until November 2026 with Gerald Häfner who has led the Section since 2016.

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