President-designate of the Leibniz Association Makes First Visit to ZEW

Professor Karl Ulrich Mayer, who became the new president of the Leibniz Association on 1 July 2010, paid his first official visit to the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim. ZEW was the first of the 86 Leibniz institutes that Mayer visited.

ZEW President Professor Wolfgang Franz gave Mayer a warm welcome to the institute and reminisced about the time they both spent as research assistants at the University of Mannheim in the 1970s. Franz was delighted that Mayer’s visit had given the ZEW board of directors and the heads of the research departments an early opportunity to discuss the institute’s research areas and methods with the new president.

Mayer was extremely interested in the research being conducted at ZEW and its use in economic policy advice. The new president showed a particular interest in ZEW’s activities in the area of education economics. This is no surprise given that the president-designate of the Leibniz Association served for many years as the director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development.