ZEW Annual Report 2007 - ZEW Increases Number of Staff and Earnings

The Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), Mannheim, increased its earnings in the business year 2007. The earnings rose to 14.72 million Euros and thus notably exceeded previous year’s result (14.15 million Euros). Particularly the ZEW’s success in competition for research-funds and third-party funds contributed to the increase of its earnings. For instance, the ZEW successfully competed for research-funds from the Joint Initiative for Research and Innovation within the scientific community Leibniz-Gemeinschaft, and it was also successful in the hard-fought national and international competition for third-party funds for economic research and counselling projects. The ZEW’s third-party funds (6.4 million Euros) are on the highest level since the institute’s foundation in 1991.

The European Union (EU) and international partners contributed to the third-party funds by 29 percent. Among the ZEW’s other financiers are the German federal and state ministries (28 percent), enterprises and organisations (20 percent), foundations (13 percent) and the German Research Foundation (10 percent). In total, 46 percent of the ZEW’s budget stem from third party funds and other income.

Moreover, the ZEW increased the number of its employees again in 2007, after having largely increased the number in 2006. At the end of 2007, 156 employees worked at the ZEW; 109 of them were scientific staff. The qualification of young economists is of great importance for the ZEW. In 2007, 13 ZEW researchers successfully completed their dissertation and one ZEW researcher completed his habilitation.

During the business year 2007, the ZEW also expanded its programme of seminars for further qualification. The ZEW is the only German economic research institute which has established a service department "Knowledge Transfer and Qualification Programmes". The service department conveys in its seminars the institute’s research results to external executives and experts in enterprises and administration. Besides seminars in Mannheim, Frankfurt/Main, Berlin and Zurich the ZEW organised in 2007 for the first time the "Mannheim Corporation Tax Day" (Mannheimer Unternehmenssteuertag). This event comprised presentations and workshops on current developments in national and international corporate taxation from a scientific as well as a practical point of view. Due to the great response, a second "Mannheim Corporation Tax Day" with the focus on "Financing" will take place at the ZEW on 24 June 2008.

Contact

Thomas Kohl, Phone: +49/621/1235-112, E-mail: kohl@zew.de