Dr. Piotr Kocyba is a research assistant at the Chair for Cultural and Country Studies of East Central Europe at Chemnitz University of Technology. He was born in Katowice on 18 June 1980. Kocyba studied Slavic Studies and Political Science at the University of Regensburg, during his studies he was supported by a scholarship from the Republic of Poland for a research stay in Upper Silesia. He then completed his doctorate as a scholarship holder from the German Historical Institute Warsaw at the Technical University of Dresden, where he was a research assistant at the Chair of Polish Regional and Cultural Studies. In 2009 he started his work at the University of Chemnitz. Among other things, Kocyba is an expert on protest research, sociolinguistics, cross-border cooperation, migration and the region of East Central Europe. Among other things, he is a board member of the Institute for Protest and Movement Research (IPB).