25 Years at ZEW – Asking the Right Questions to Shape the Future

On 8 December 2016, the Mannheim-based Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) will hold a ceremony to celebrate its 25th anniversary. In 1991 the institute opened its doors with only a small team of employees. Today, 25 years later, ZEW has become one of the leading economic research institutes in Germany and Europe. Though only established relatively recently, the economic research institution has become an unparalleled success.

"The success of ZEW rests to a great extent on our ability to ask the right questions at the right time in order to enrich the current economic policy debate with important insights and research findings," says ZEW President Professor Achim Wambach, PhD. "The fact that this recipe for success actually works is down to the work of the highly qualified and extremely dedicated staff we have at ZEW as well as our research infrastructure which makes valuable and in some cases even unique research data available to the scientific community. Particularly worthy of mention here are the Mannheim Innovation Panel and the Mannheim Enterprise Panel."

Another considerable contributing factor to ZEW's successful development from the very beginning was the ongoing support from Baden-Württemberg as well as the institute's integration in the Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Region. The Rhine-Neckar Region is particularly closely connected to ZEW through the ZEW Sponsors' Association for Science and Practice thanks to its many corporate members.

Well-connected in the Rhine-Neckar Region and across Europe

Currently of great importance for research used as a basis for providing competent economic policy advice is the institute's cooperation since its founding with higher education institutions in the Rhein-Neckar region, in particular the University of Mannheim. "This can be seen in, among other things, the joint appointments of the president and other management personnel at ZEW," says Thomas Kohl, Director of Business and Administration at ZEW. This close academic relationship with the University of Mannheim is also evidenced by the cooperation of the two institutions as part of the Leibniz-ScienceCampus "MaCCI" for competition and innovation and also as part of "MaTax", a project dealing with tax policy issues in which the University of Heidelberg is also involved.

As is fitting for an economic research institute with "European" in its name, ZEW is not only active on a national level but on a European level as well and has been extremely successful in competing for project grants from the European Commission. Topics handled by ZEW range from research into innovation and start-ups to energy transition and climate change as well as fiscal policy and the Eurozone crisis. And yet ZEW also has a tradition since its founding of being an early adopter of new and important topics such as Industry and Labour 4.0, the distribution of wealth and poverty or refugee integration, as well as picking up on new developments in the world of economic research, which explains why the institute has had such great success. The "Market Design" Research Group recently set up at ZEW is a good example of this.

Market design is a newly-emerging economic discipline with vast potential for the future. "On the basis of substantiated analyses, this research group hopes to improve market performance through active design, testing and implementation of rules," says Achim Wambach, explaining the objectives of market design. In the field of public procurement, for example, vast savings could be made through optimising the market appropriately. This could reduce any unnecessary expenditure from taxpayer funds. Market design is thus a fertile area for future research at ZEW which also features many close links with the institute's other research units. We can therefore be sure to look forward to another 25 years of fascinating questions and successful work.

A brief introduction to ZEW

Back in 1990, a joint initiative between the government of Baden-Württemberg under Minister President Lothar Späth, the economy of Baden-Württemberg and the University of Mannheim resulted in the decision to found an economic research institute. Following this decision, ZEW opened its doors in 1991 in Mannheim. The institute's success has led to its rapid development over the past 25 years. Today the institute has around 190 members of staff, of whom about two thirds are involved in academic research, as well as around 100 interns and graduate research assistants. Of particular importance to ZEW are the around 100 research associates and professors based at higher education institutions both in Germany and abroad who are actively involved in the further development of the institute's research agenda, submit project proposals and offer support to up-and-coming young researchers. In 2004 ZEW became a member of the Leibniz Association. All institutes belonging to the Association must submit themselves to a performance evaluation every seven years. In 2016 it was ZEW's turn for evaluation once again. The external evaluators certified the research institute's performance as very good to excellent. This was an excellent evaluationfollowing on from the "very good" rating ZEW received back in 2009.

For more information please contact:

Prof. Achim Wambach, PhD, Phone +49(0)621/1235-100, E-mail wambach@zew.de

Thomas Kohl, Phone +49 621 1235 111, E-mail kohl@zew.de