From 2014 he worked at the University of Hamburg as a research associate and lecturer (Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter) for Classical and Colloquial Tibetan.
His field of interest lies in the religious and cultural history of Tibet and its related biographical and historiographical literature with a special emphasis on the Sa skya school of Tibetan Buddhism. Furthermore, he pursues research in Tibetan Buddhist art and Colloquial Tibetan. For his new research projects, he investigates a tantric collection of old Tibetan manuscripts from Ngor Monastery [Link: NTT) and works on a typology of lama portraits of Ngor abbots commissioned as statues or thangka paintings (e.g., paintings to be shown on death anniversaries known as dus thang). (University of Hamburg Source Accessed August 4, 2020)
As of 2024, Dr. Jörg Heimbel has been appointed as professor of Tibetan and Buddhist studies at Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich (LMU). Jointly sponsored by the German TARA Foundation (TARA Stiftung), Khyentse Foundation, and LMU, the tenured position is one of just a handful of Tibetan Buddhism professorships in Europe. The professorship has been vacant since the retirement of Prof. Dr. Franz-Karl Ehrhard in 2019. Ehrhard had served in the position for 16 years. (Source Accessed May 6, 2026)
