 In 1986, Benz became a full professor of biotechnology at the University of Würzburg, his "alma mater".Since 2003, Benz has been a Member of the European Graduate College; and, since 2005, a Member in the French–German Graduate College, both sponsored by the DFG.Since 2009, Benz has held the Wisdom Professorship at the Jacobs University Bremen and has been a research fellow at the Rudolf Virchow Center and the DFG Research Center for Experimental Biomedicine.