A (Professional) Life Dedicated to Innovation Research
PersonnelZEW Veteran Dr. Georg Licht Retires After 30 Years as Research Unit Head
Dr. Georg Licht, ZEW employee from the very beginning and head of ZEW’s “Economics of Innovation and Industrial Dynamics” Research Unit since 1994, will begin his well-earned retirement at the end of June 2023. His successor is Professor Hanna Hottenrott, who has been heading the research unit together with him since April. With his work to develop innovation and start-up research at ZEW, Georg Licht has significantly advanced the institute to the forefront of its field. In doing so, the creation of a suitable data infrastructure for evidence-based policy advice and research was always a particular concern of his.
Personal greeting from Minister of Education Bettina Stark Watzinger (in German language)
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As a young researcher himself in 1993, he and Professor Dietmar Harhoff brought the Innovation Survey to ZEW in a public tender of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. In Mannheim, the pair further developed the project into the Mannheim Innovation Panel (MIP). Georg Licht has been ZEW’s authorized signatory since 2003 and has significantly advanced ZEW not only in terms of content, but also with his commitment and broad network. He has advised countless institutions and organisations, including the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the European Commission.
“Georg Licht has long been a cornerstone of ZEW. He was already there when Heinz König founded the institute, when ZEW still had a start-up character. It’s partly thanks to him that it has become an extremely renowned research institute. I was always impressed by his personal manner as well: He was always there for his employees and promoted them,” says Thomas Kohl, managing director of ZEW. ZEW President Professor Achim Wambach adds: “Georg Licht was always a great connoisseur of national and international innovation and research policy. He was an excellent networker and a sought-after advisor in various national and European committees. One of the many things he accomplished was to successfully lobby for tax incentives for corporate research and development spending since 2020.”
Nurturing young talent and innovations
Georg Licht’s research focused on innovation and start-up policy. He was particularly interested in the founding of high-tech companies and how they are financed in the early stages. Recognising and promoting potential early on was always of importance to him, also as a research unit head. Of his 108 employees, half earned their doctorates while working in the research unit, and 30 currently hold university professorships. During their time working for Georg Licht, they could always count on his inspiration and support.
More about Georg Licht
After graduating from Heidelberg University with a degree in economics, Georg Licht went on to earn a doctorate in political science from the University of Augsburg. He worked at the University of Augsburg beginning in 1985 as a senior researcher until he was recruited to ZEW by Heinz König in 1992. He completed numerous international guest stays, including at the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the USA, in China, and at various research institutions and universities in Europe.
About the Mannheim Innovation Panel (MIP)
Since 1993, ZEW has been collecting annual data on innovation activity in the German economy. The innovation survey covers the manufacturing industry as well as business-related and distributive service sectors. In cooperation with the Institute for Applied Social Sciences (infas) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI), the survey is conducted on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The MIP is also Germany’s contribution to the European Commission’s Community Innovation Survey (CIS). The MIP provides important information on corporate introduction of new products, services and processes, expenditures for innovations, and the success that companies achieve with new products, new services and improved procedures. In addition, the survey provides information on the factors that promote and hinder future corporate investments. The MIP helps to meet the need for information on innovation processes in technology and economic policy and to identify starting points for policies that could strengthen innovation.
About the research unit
ZEW’s “Economics of Innovation and Industrial Dynamics” Research Unit investigates corporate behaviour under dynamic market conditions using empirical analyses. The focus is on the innovation behaviour of companies, the division of labour between stakeholders in the innovation system, the exchange of research findings between firms and scientific institutions, as well as market entry/exit and the development of (young) firms. In addition, the team analyses and evaluates economic policy measures.
