Wismar: Prof. Dr. Wiegand-Hoffmeister is once again rector of the university!

Wismar: Prof. Dr. Wiegand-Hoffmeister is once again rector of the university!

On July 10, 2025, Prof. Dr. jur. Bodo Wiegand-Hoffmeister was re-elected rector of Wismar University. This election took place during the meeting of the Fifth Enlarged Senate, and Wiegand-Hoffmeister successfully prevailed against an external applicant. His model for the future is clear: from February 1, 2026, he will be in office for another six years and will continue to develop the university in order to keep it competitive. “I would like to thank the members of the Extended Senate for their trust,” he said after the election and is optimistic about the challenges ahead.

A look at his career shows that Wiegand-Hoffmeister not only aims to return to the top of the university, but also has a solid foundation in the academic and political landscape. Born in Essen, he studied law and philosophy at the Ruhr University in Bochum and passed the first state examination in law in Düsseldorf in 1991. After several positions, including as a research assistant and speaker for the SPD parliamentary group in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, he completed his doctorate in 2000 and was then appointed to the Faculty of Economics at the University of Wismar.

Successful leadership

Wiegand-Hoffmeister's performance as rector to date should not be forgotten: He has led the university since 2014 and was particularly notable for his successful leadership during the pandemic. He established an intensive collaboration with the state government in order to make better use of WINGS GmbH's income. His role as chairman of the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania State Conference of Rectors since March 2023 shows his influence and networking within the higher education sector.

In his new term of office, the rector plans to further expand Wismar University not only as an educational institution, but also as a driver of innovation. A future-oriented example is the use of Matomo for statistical web analysis, which the university uses to improve the user experience of its website. The key advantages are the anonymization of the collected data and the clear opportunity for users to determine their own data protection settings. According to the university, further details about the collected impressions are available on the data protection page so that there is transparency as to where personal data is processed.

Data protection in higher education

Wiegand-Hoffmeister is also taking office at a time when the issue of data protection is of utmost relevance for educational institutions. Since the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU in May 2018, universities have had to comply with strict requirements for the processing of personal data. These regulations apply to both academic and administrative institutions and include information about students and employees, personal circumstances and their performance. Universities are therefore required to create a clear legal framework for this data processing.

E-learning and the analysis of data are playing an increasingly important role, which brings additional challenges for data protection. The responsibility for data processing lies not only with the institutions themselves, but also with the staff and students. As part of these legal requirements, universities are required to design their data processing processes transparently and securely in order to avoid possible damage to their image caused by data protection violations.

Prof. Dr. Bodo Wiegand-Hoffmeister is facing another exciting and challenging term in office, which he would like to shape with a clear focus on the further development of the university and the well-being of the students.