Lorenz Lassnigg earned his PhD in 1980 in Pedagogics and Political Science from the University of Vienna. He then joined the postgraduate course in sociology at the IHS. From 1984 until 2017, he was employed in research and teaching at IHS and remained affiliated with the institute. He has been a visitor at the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB), the University of California (Berkeley, Center for Studies of Higher Education, CSHE) and a Visiting Professor at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He was invited for lectureships by universities in Linz, Vienna, Klagenfurt, Graz, and at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration. Since 2010 he has taught and supervised doctoral students at the School of Education of the University of Tampere, Finland.

His main areas of research cover sociological research of education and training at the interface of social, political and economic interests, especially regarding the coordination of vocational training and employment as well as evaluation and governance research.