Jens Knigge

Om Jens Knigge

I am a professor of music education with a focus on building international research structures at the intersection of arts, education, and society. My own research spans competence assessment, instructional quality in music classrooms, cultural literacy and social inclusion through the arts, digital tools and artificial intelligence in music and arts education, and videographic analyses of learning practices — with more than 90 publications. [see Publications]

Alongside my research, I have increasingly taken on roles in research strategy, governance, and institutional development: founding and leading research groups, coordinating large-scale EU and national projects, and advising funding bodies on research policy.

As a member of the Swedish Research Council’s review panel and of the Research Council of Norway’s national reference group for Horizon Europe Cluster 2, and as a reviewer for the Swiss National Science Foundation, the German Research Foundation and the Slovak Research and Development Agency, I contribute to research assessment and funding policy in several European countries.

Over the years, I have successfully acquired and led multiple large-scale externally funded research projects. Currently, my main focus is the coordination of the Horizon Europe project dialoguing@rts, which investigates how performing arts education can foster cultural literacy and social inclusion. In addition, I co-lead Work Package 4 (Creative use of AI in education) of the MishMash Centre for AI and Creativity. [see Research]

CV

Since 2026 Professor of Music Education at the Academy of Music and Drama, University of Gothenburg (Sweden)

Since 2025 Visiting Professor (professor II) at the Norwegian Academy of Music (NMH), Oslo (Norway)

Since 2018 Professor of Music Education at Nord University, Faculty of Education and Arts, Campus Levanger (Norway); head of the research group ‘Music-related Learning Processes’

2022–2025 Visiting Professor (professor II) at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim (Norway)

2016–2018 Professor of Music Education at the University of Music Lübeck (Germany); Head of the ‘Centre for Teacher Education’ (ZfL)

2013–2016 Professor of Music Didactics/Artistic Practice in Music at the University of Erfurt (Germany); Head of department (music), 2014–2016 Vice Director of the Erfurt School of Education (ESE)

2010–2013 (Associate) Professor of Music Education at the University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart (Germany)

2010 Doctorate (Dr. phil.) at the University of Bremen (Germany)

2008–2009 Coordinator of the BMBF research programme ‘An Instrument for Every Child’ (JeKi) at Bielefeld University (Germany)

2007–2009 Research fellow at the University of Bremen (Germany), DFG project KoMus