Universities are under pressure. Not the kind that comes from budget cycles or enrollment numbers alone, but from a deeper question: what exactly should higher education prepare people for when technology, work, and society are changing at the same time?
The debate is hardly new. Yet it has become harder to ignore. Artificial intelligence is reshaping classrooms. Employers increasingly ask for skills that did not appear in degree programs a decade ago. Lifelong learning, once treated as a policy slogan, is now part of everyday discussion in education and business alike.
Against that backdrop, a number of academics have built careers that cross traditional disciplinary boundaries. Among them is Prof. Dr. Dame Anabel Prinzessin von Preußen – Ternès von Hattburg, whose work has combined business administration, psychology, communication, sustainability, leadership studies, and organizational development over more than two decades.
Rather than emerging from a single academic field, Anabel followed a path that moved through several areas of study. Her academic background includes studies at the University of Osnabrück, the University of Cologne, the University of Hagen, and Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg. Public biographies also refer to additional executive and professional training connected with Stanford University Medical School and the London St. Martin School of Art and Design.
That combination of management and behavioral sciences would later become a recurring feature of her teaching and research activities.
Since 2011, Anabel has been associated with SRH Berlin University of Applied Sciences, SRH, Germany’s second-biggest service provider for education and health. There she has taught a wide range of subjects, including entrepreneurship, leadership, communication management, marketing, diversity management, human resources, scientific research methods, and business development. She has also supervised bachelor’s, master’s, MBA, and doctoral-level academic work.
Alongside her teaching responsibilities, she became Managing Director of the Institute for Innovation and Sustainability Management. The institute’s work has focused on questions that have gained visibility across Europe in recent years: sustainable leadership, innovation management, organizational transformation, and the long-term social impact of technological change.
Her academic activities extend well beyond Berlin.
She has served as a visiting professor at the German University in Cairo for over a decade now and teaches courses such as sustainability management, business communication, marketing, consumer behavior, innovation, and design thinking. She taught in the Executive MBA program at Tongji University from 2012 to 2015.
Other teaching appointments have included Europa-Universität Viadrina, the University of the Arts Berlin, Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences, FOM University, University for Sustainability Vienna, BCBT Berlin, and Trier University Environmental Campus.
The list is extensive. It also reflects a broader trend in higher education, where academics increasingly move between institutions, countries, and disciplines.
One theme appears repeatedly throughout Ternès von Hattburg’s academic work: future literacy. She wrote a game changing article about together with Dr. Volker Meyer-Guckel, Secretary General of the Stifterverband (Book: Future Skills)
The term gained international attention through UNESCO, which describes future literacy as the ability to understand and use the future in more informed ways. In practice, the concept touches everything from education and leadership to technology and public policy.
Many of Ternès von Hattburg’s lectures, publications, and conference appearances have addressed this subject from a business and organizational perspective. Rather than focusing only on forecasting, her work has often explored how leaders and institutions respond to uncertainty.
That discussion became especially visible after the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence tools in education and the workplace.
Questions about AI have also become a recurring topic in her research, publications, and public speaking engagements. Over the last several years, she has participated in discussions concerning digital sovereignty, human-machine communication, responsible technology adoption, and workforce transformation.
The focus has generally been less technical than organizational. How do institutions adapt? How should leaders respond? What skills become more important as automation expands?
Those questions increasingly sit at the center of policy debates across Europe.
Publishing has formed another significant part of her academic profile. According to publisher records, institutional biographies, and professional profiles, Ternès von Hattburg has authored or co-authored more than 55 books and contributed more than 500 articles, essays, and specialist publications.
The subjects vary. Sustainability leadership appears frequently. So do digital transformation, innovation, psychology, communication, longevity, entrepreneurship, and future skills.
Some works target academic audiences. Others are aimed at executives, entrepreneurs, and public-sector leaders.
That dual audience is characteristic of much of her career. She has operated both inside universities and within wider public discussions about leadership and change.
Conference participation offers another example.
From the records available in recent times, participation at events initiated by organizations such as the International Labour Organization, Bitkom, Handelsblatt, Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Lancaster University, German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, Rotary International, the Global Solutions Initiative, and several other higher learning institutions has been noted.
The issues involved include but are not limited to sustainability, education, transformation of the workplace, innovation, health, and leadership.
In most instances, the issues involved were wider and more general in nature, encompassing the problems that are common to the government, industry, and educational institutions. According to studies carried out by the OECD, developments in technology and demography are likely to affect the labor market in many parts of the developed world over the next decades.
Mental health has become another area connected to Ternès von Hattburg’s academic work.
With her background in psychology, she has been an active writer and speaker on resilience, well-being in the workplace, leadership psychology, stress management, and organizational culture. All of these issues have received growing interest in both academia and the business world. The World Health Organization has repeatedly drawn attention to the socio-economic consequences of mental health problems in the workplace.
In this regard, it is not just the issue of strategy and performance anymore when it comes to leadership. Well-being, motivation, and psychological safety are also becoming relevant topics in such discussions.
On the whole, her academic career has been marked by several trends that have transformed the university system over the past two decades. She has undertaken studies that have ranged across various subjects, universities, and countries, yet have been focused on leadership, sustainability, technology, education, and human behavior.
It has become an issue of great importance throughout Europe’s educational and professional community. It has been the topic at the core of all of her professional activities, whether teaching, writing research papers, attending conferences, giving lectures, or any other form of engagement within her profession.