Bernhard Ebbinghaus (born 2 June 1961) is a German sociologist and comparative social policy expert at the University of Mannheim.
He studied sociology at the University of Mannheim (1981–88) and was a Fulbright student at the New School for Social Research in 1984/85.
Following a year at the Institut Universitaire d'Etudes Européennes in Geneva, he was a doctoral student at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Italy (1989–92), where he wrote his Ph.D. thesis on Labour Unity in Union Diversity: Trade Unions and Social Cleavages in Western Europe, 1890-1989 (1993).
He is a specialist of comparative social policy, analyzing the reform processes of welfare states in Europe and other OECD countries.
Since November 2021 Professor Ebbinghaus is member of the European Commission’s High-Level Group on the future of social protection and of the welfare state in the EU.