Prof. Dr. Dirk Messner is the Director of the German Development Institute (DIE) since 2004 and teaches social sciences—now at the University of Duisburg-Essen after teaching inter alia for universities in Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, and Honduras. His research activities as a economist and political scientist comprise the areas of globalization and global governance, development policy, international/systemic competitiveness, industrial development in Latin America and Asia, and state and development theories. Prof. Messner is member of the scientific advisory board "peace and conflict research" of the Federal Foreign Office; member of the board of directors of the group "Development Theory and Development Policy" of the German federation of politicital scientists and since 2004 member of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU).