ZEW Among the Top Five Climate Policy Think Tanks in the World

The Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim ranks fourth among the approximately 200 institutes evaluated for the recently published "2013 Climate Think Tank Ranking" by the renowned International Center for Climate Governance (ICCG). It is thus among the world's most cutting-edge scientific institutions that work in the field of climate change economics and policy. Compared to 2012, the research institute has moved up two spots in the ICCG ranking, where all the activity outputs of a think tank were standardised by the number of its researchers.

The institutes included in the ranking were assessed by ICCG experts according to a set of 15 criteria structured in three pillars: activities, publications, and dissemination. The activity indicator measures the institute's influence on climate policy and its policy involvement. The publications pillar refers to the number and quality of publications. An important factor in this pillar is the number of publications in renowned peer-reviewed academic journals. The dissemination pillar was added as a new criterion in this year's ranking. It evaluates the success of an institute in disseminating its research results at international conferences or via the internet.

Apart from the standardised ranking, which assessed the performance in research and policy advice according to the criterion of per capita output, the ICCG also built an absolute ranking. In this ranking, only the scientific output was considered, irrespective of the number of staff or the size of the institute. Coming 21^st, ZEW has achieved a position in the upper part in the absolute ranking, too, ahead of institutes with far more staff. Only ZEW staff working in the Research Department “Environmental and Resource Economics, Environmental Management” was included in the ranking.

For more information please contact

Martin Achtnicht, Phone +49(0)621/1235 208, E-mail achtnicht@zew.de