Jens Beckert has been Director at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies and Professor of Sociology in Cologne since 2005. He previously taught in Göttingen, New York, Princeton, Paris, and at Harvard University. In 2018 he received the German Research Foundation's Leibniz Award, the highest research award granted in Germany. For his book Imagined Futures he received the Karl Polanyi Prize from the German Sociological Association. His other books include Inherited Wealth and Beyond the Market.