Hermann J. Abs is a full professor for Educational Research and Schooling at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, since 2013. Previously he has been a Professor for Research in Schooling and Teaching at the University of Giessen since 2009.  He also lectured at the University of Frankfurt and at the University of Freiburg. Outside the university, Abs worked as a project coordinator and project leader for national and international projects in the area of citizenship education at the German Institute for International Educational Research (DIPF) in Frankfurt, Main from 2002 to 2009. Earlier on, he taught as a teacher at secondary schools.

Professor Abs was the founding director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Integration and Migration Research (InZentIM) at the University of Duisburg-Essen from 2016 to 2020. He co-coordinated the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI) Special Interest Group 13 on Moral and Democratic Education from 2015 to 2019. Currently, he serves as the Principal Investigator for the IEA International Civic and Citizenship Study (ICCS 2022) in Germany.