Birgit Mager is co-founder and president of the International Service Design Network and editor-in-chief of Touchpoint, the international journal of service design.

Since 1995, Birgit Mager has held the first European professorship for „Service Design“ at the University of Applied Sciences in Cologne, Germany, and since then has continuously developed the field of Service Design in theory, methodology and practice. Her numerous lectures, publications and projects have strongly supported the implementation of a new understanding of the economic, ecological and social function of design in the field of services.

In 2020 she received the Sir Misha Black Award for outstanding contributions to design education. Since 2024 she is a visiting professor and member of the advisory board at the Sapienza University of Rome in the PhD program Service Design and Public Sector. In June 2025 she was honored with the Prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award by ISSIP.