Roman Sandgruber, born in 1947, studied history, German studies and economics and obtained his doctorate in 1971 before working as an assistant and then lecturer at the Institute for Economic and Social History at the University of Vienna from 1972 to 1988. After his habilitation in economic and social history in 1982, he was a full professor of economic and social history at the Johannes Kepler University Linz from 1988 to 2015.

Sandgruber was Chairman of the University Senate from 1996 to 1998 and has been a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences since 1995 and a full member since 2012. From 1998 to 2003, he was a member of the six-member Austrian Historians' Commission for research into "Property seizure on the territory of the Republic of Austria during the Nazi era and restitution and compensation from 1945 onwards", from 1994 to 2015 he was Chairman of the Economic History Section of the Association of Austrian Historical Societies and Head of the Economic and Social History Section at the Austrian Historians' Conference, from 2001-2015 he was a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Austrian Research Foundation and has been President of the Association of Upper Austrian Museums and the Upper Austrian History Forum since 2001. He is currently also a member of the six-person advisory board for the 2018 commemorative year, chaired by former President Heinz Fischer.

Roman Sandgruber's research focusses on economic and social history, everyday life and cultural history. This has resulted in 29 books and around 240 academic articles. He was the scientific and organisational director of two Lower Austrian and four Upper Austrian provincial exhibitions and a number of other exhibitions and publishes regularly in daily, weekly and monthly journals. Since 2005, he has been a regular weekly columnist for the daily newspaper "Oberösterreichische Nachrichten". Sandgruber is currently working on a history of the Austrian Rothschilds from the late 18th century to 1955.