His doctoral thesis on German inland-waterway tanker-shipping was supervised by Ulrich Troitzsch as well as his earlier MA-thesis on traditional watercraft.
[5] Heidbrink has been selected as a research fellow at the Rachel Carson Center at the University of Munich, a newly established federal think tank for environmental history.
Heidbrink’s scholarly work is dedicated to several sub-topics of maritime history: Since the mid-1990s he dealt intensively with the theoretical framework behind the restoration and operation of museum ships and traditional vessels.
[7] Since 2000 his publications mainly focus on fisheries history and the Law of the Sea and especially his book on the fishing conflicts of the 20th century was discussed controversial, because he stated that the European distant-water fisheries of the late 19th and 20th century have been a kind of common economic colonialism in the North Atlantic area.
[9] Heidbrink is involved in a variety of international organizations dedicated to research in Maritime History.