Prof. Dr. Karl-Dieter Grüske, born 1946 in Erlangen, studied economics in Erlangen/Nuremberg (FAU) and Munich. From 1972 to 1988, he was assistant and associate professor under Prof. H.C. Recktenwald in the Department of Economics at the Faculty of Business Administration, Economics and Social Sciences at FAU. In 1978, he completed his doctoral thesis “summa cum laude” on distribution effects of public budgeting. For his habilitation thesis in 1986 he received both an FAU award and the prestigious Wolfgang-Ritter-Preis (Bremen). In 2010, Karl-Dieter Grüske was awarded the Order of Merit by the Federal President of Germany. In 2015, he was awarded the Medal of the Bavarian Constitution.
During research stays abroad, he spent time in Indonesia (1974), Yemen (1982), China (1985) and the USA (1987). From 1988 to 1990, he was academic project manager under Prof. Meinhard Miegel at the Bonn Institute for Economics and Social Research. In 1990, he was offered a chair at the Bundeswehr University, Hamburg. In 1991, he accepted the Chair of Public Finance at FAU. He is a member of all the important societies and associations in his discipline, and has published three books and numerous scientific papers and is co-editor of the renowned ‘Klassiker der Nationalökonomie’ (Classics of Political Economy), among other works.
Due to his vast knowledge and experience, Karl-Dieter Grüske is a valued member of numerous committees. In 1993, he was appointed as a member of the Advisory Council for Family Affairs at the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women, and Youth, a position which he held until 2010. From 1997 to 2000, he was a member of the Advisory Council for Administrative Reform of the Hessian Ministries and Universities; he has also been involved in several other committees for university reforms and a member of the standing committees for economics and education economics in Verein für Socialpolitik (German Economic Association). From 1999 to 2003, he also acted as a member of the Advisory Council of the German Institute for Youth in Munich. During the years 1993 to 2006, he served as chairman of the Gesellschaft für Finanzwissenschaftliche Forschung (Society for Research in Public Finance). In 2008, he became honorary professor of the University for International Business and Economics in Beijing. He was a member of the DAAD’s Board of Trustees from 2012 to 2015.
Between 1994 and 1996, Karl-Dieter Grüske was dean of the Faculty of Business Administration, Economics and Social Sciences, from 1996 to 2000, he served on the Senate, and from 2000 to 2002 as prorector of the University. From April 2002 to March 2015, he was rector and then, after the office was renamed in 2010, president of FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg. After two years as deputy speaker, he was chairman of Universität Bayern e.V from 2009 to 2011. He was vice president for research of the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK) from 2008 to 2014.
Since his retirement on 1 April 2015, he has continued to fulfil a variety of roles, including as chairman of the Advisory Board for Research Migration at the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, vice president of the Virtual University of Bavaria, and a member of the HRK’s Executive Board, the Board of Trustees of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, the Advisory Board of the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS, various HRK commissions, the Advisory Board of Sparkasse Nuremberg and two supervisory boards, and as honorary chairman of the Confucius Institute Nürnberg-Erlangen. He also acts as a reviewer (e.g. in evaluation committees) and as a speaker on higher education policy.