100 High School Students from Four States to Attend YES! Qualification at ZEW

The qualification round for the Germany-wide high school competition Young Economic Summit (YES!) will be held on 23 June 2017 at the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim. A total of 100 high school students from Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland will take part in the event. They will present their solutions for global economic issues and discuss them with expert economists. The winning teams will go forward to the YES! final in Kiel on 28 and 29 September 2017. The winners will be decided by the participants themselves. The qualification round will be opened by ZEW President Professor Achim Wambach.

This is the first year that ZEW is participating in the YES! project as a research partner. As part of this role, the institute has been using its expertise to help the teams come up with their project ideas and to develop solutions. A second qualification round will take place on 6 July 2017 at the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics in Kiel where high school teams from Northern Germany will compete for a place in the final.

The following teams will be presenting their ideas at the qualification round at ZEW in Mannheim (topics are given in brackets):

• Baden-Württemberg: Albert-Einstein-Gymnasium Ulm (Modern Tax Policy), Albertus-Magnus-Gymnasium Stuttgart (National Innovation Strategies), Friedrich-List-Schule Mannheim (Sustainable Consumption), Geschwister-Scholl-Gymnasium Stuttgart (Post-Growth Society), Werner-Heisenberg-Gymnasium Weinheim (Artificial Intelligence and the Digital Economy)
• Hesse: Hohe Landesschule Hanau (European Integration and the Rise of Nationalist Populist Parties)
• Rhineland-Palatinate: BBS Wirtschaft 1 Ludwigshafen (National Innovation Strategies),
• Saarland: Albert-Schweitzer-Gymnasium Dillingen (European Integration and the Rise of Nationalist Populist Parties)

All representatives of the media are welcome to attend the YES! qualification round at ZEW in Mannheim. The planned programme for the event on 23 June 2017 is as follows:

• 10:00: Opening of the YES! qualification by ZEW President Achim Wambach
• 10:20 – 11:35 Block 1: Presentations from the YES! teams followed by a discussion of their ideas with ZEW economists
• 11:35 – 12:00: Break
• 12:00 – 13:15 Block 2: Presentations from the YES! teams followed by a discussion of their ideas with ZEW economists
• 13:15 – 14:25: Break
• 14:25 – 15:15 Block 3: Presentations from the YES! teams followed by a discussion of their ideas with ZEW economists
• 15:15 – 15:50 Quick pitches (a minute each) from all the teams and casting of votes for the best solutions.
• 15:50 – 16:20: Break
• 16:20: The seven finalists for the final in Kiel on 28 and 29 September 2017 are announced.

About YES!

The “YES! – Young Economic Summit” is one of the biggest school competitions aimed at getting young people to engage with economic and social issues. High school students come up with their own solutions to global economic, ecological and social problems and present them in English as part of a students’ conference, also known as the “YES! – Young Economic Summit”. Through discussions with leading economists and other students, they will focus on global connections and develop their own innovative solutions. There will be a vote to determine the best solutions. The winning solutions will be awarded a prize and publicly forwarded to those in a position to investigate how they might be put into practice. In the run-up to YES! all students participating in the project will receive continued support and guidance in topics such as how to carry out research, give presentations and engage with the media. YES! included these topics following the recommendation from the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs that school students should be taught how to exercise critical judgement when using media applications. The “YES! – Young Economic Summit” falls under the patronage of the Federal Minister of Economic Affairs, Brigitte Zypries, and is a joint project by the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (www.zbw.eu/en) and the Joachim Herz Stiftung (www.joachim-herz-stiftung.de/en). The Leibniz Association's scientific partner institutions are the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW) and the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies in Hamburg: www.young-economic-summit.org/?lang=en

German National Library of Economics (ZBW) – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics

The ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics is the largest research library for economics in the world. The institute holds around four million books and provides access to millions of online documents relating to economics. In 2016 alone, around six million digital texts were downloaded through the library. The ZBW also offers a rapidly growing collection of Open Access documents. EconStor, the library's digital publications server, currently contains over 128,000 essays and working papers that can be accessed for free. Through EconBiz, a specialist portal for technical economic information, students and researchers can access over nine million different data sets for their research. On top of this, the ZBW also publishes two economics journals: Wirtschaftsdienst and Intereconomics. The ZBW is a research-based academic library. Three professorships and an international group of PhD students are conducting research into the digitisation of science following an interdisciplinary approach. The ZBW has developed a vast international network of contacts through its research. Principal collaboration partners come from large EU projects, German Research Foundation projects as well as from the Leibniz Research Alliance Science 2.0. The ZBW is a member of the Leibniz Association and a foundation under public law. On multiple occasions, the ZBW has been awarded the international LIBER award for its innovative work as a library. The ZBW was named “Library of the Year” in 2014.

The Joachim Herz Stiftung

The Joachim Herz Stiftung is an economically independent, politically neutral non-profit foundation which supports education, scholarship and research in science and economics as well as the personal development of teenagers and young adults. It was founded in the summer of 2008. More information can be found at: www.joachim-herz-stiftung.de/en

For further information please contact

Carina Fugger, Phone: +49(0)621 1235-122, E-mail: fugger@zew.de