Katharina Bürger

Katharina Bürger is a doctoral research student based at the School of Business and Law. Her research interests are around mega-events, such as the Olympic Games, Football World Cups and Expos and their stakeholders. In particular she is interested in conflicts, protest and resistance around modern Olympic Games and where this stems from and why. Her PhD project is supervised by Dr Tijana Rakic (Lead Supervisor) and Dr Michael Williams (Second Supervisor).

Katharina's background is in Tourism and Events Management and she obtained her BA in Tourism Management from Kempten University of Applied Sciences, Germany, in 2016. During her undergraduate studies, Katharina completed a semester abroad in Business Management at Mikkeli University, Finland. In 2017, Katharina successfully completed her MSc International Event Management at the University of Brighton. Afterwards she has worked as a freelance researcher for the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, contributing to a mega-event database project. She began her PhD research project in January 2020 at the School of Business and Law.

Between February and July 2021, Katharina taught at undergraduate level on the IE504 module "Understanding events' stakeholders: competing interests, clashes and conflicts". The module addressed a range of contemporary challenges event managers face when organising international events, festivals and spectacles. Competing interests and the growing resistance towards events were highlighted and Katharina engaged her students with examples from her PhD research and varied actitivities during the asynchronous (recorded) and live online sessions. She aims to inspire her students and invites them to critically think and reflect about their role as future event managers in an ever-changing events landscape.