He served for the German liberal party (FDP) in the parliament of Hamburg, from 1972 to 1974 as an assistant and later (from 1974 to 1978) as a member, and also as executive secretary.
From 1987 to 1992 he served the faculty of computer science of the University of Koblenz-Landau as dean and from 1992 to 2000 as vice-dean.
In 2001, he received an honorary doctorate from the Dnipropetrovsk National University (Ukraine).
He published one of the most important textbooks in that area "Simulation for the Social Scientist", now in its second edition (together with Nigel Gilbert).
He has been involved in several research projects funded by the European Union, for instance Freshwater Integrated Resources Management with Agents (FIRMA) and OCOPOMO.