Nicola Scherer

Prof. Dr. Nicola Scherer is a professor of Cultural Management and Cultural Work at the University of Applied Sciences Niederrhein. She studied Fine and Performing Arts, Philosophy, and Cultural Management in Braunschweig, Vienna, Salzburg, and Munich, and earned her Ph.D. from the University of Hildesheim with a dissertation on international performing arts festivals.

As a founding member of the artist collective space ensemble, Scherer has conceptualized and realized numerous projects as an artist, curator, and cultural manager across Germany, Austria, and the United States.

Her teaching and research focus on cultural institutions and organizational change, festival studies, transformation processes in the arts, cultural leadership, performance practices, cultural policy, and transnational research methodologies. She is currently a research partner in the EU-funded project BABEL – or the Art of Listening in Theatre for Young Audiences, and serves as an advisor to the ITI Academy, a qualification program of the International Theatre Institute Germany supporting transnational artistic practice.

She is also involved in Culture.Care, a pioneering initiative promoting socially sustainable and care-oriented working environments in the performing arts, funded by the European Social Fund (ESF) as part of the “Transformation of Work” program.

In 2024, she received the "Excellence in Education" Award from the Education 2.0 Conference in Dubai. She has also been awarded the Gerda Henkel Visiting Professorship Fellowship and will teach at Stanford University during the Spring Term of 2026.