ZEW Congratulates Its Former Director on His 80th Birthday

On 23 July 2019, the former long-standing Director of Businesses of Administration of the ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research in Mannheim, Ernst-O. Schulze, celebrated his 80th birthday. The employees of ZEW would like to offer their congratulations on this special occasion. On behalf of the Board of Directors, the current ZEW Director and successor to Schulze, Thomas Kohl, acknowledges the contributions of his predecessor.

“As an experienced science manager, Ernst-O. Schulze successfully contributed to transforming ZEW into the highly renowned institute that it is today. His decisive contribution to shaping the difficult first years and the impressive success story of the research institute remains, therefore, a great accomplishment of Schulze,” says Thomas Kohl.

Schulze, who has been living in Bruchsal for 35 years, started working at ZEW in 1990 and played an active and integral part during the establishing phase of the institute, first with the scientific founding director Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Heinz König, and from 1997 onwards with König’s successor Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. mult. Wolfgang Franz. On 23 July 2004, Schulze went into retirement and handed over his office as ZEW Director to Thomas Kohl. To this day, Schulze remains closely connected with the institute as member of the ZEW Alumni Club, which provides an opportunity for former ZEW employees to stay in contact with each other, and as member of the ZEW Sponsors’ Association for Science and Practice, which aims to further the dialogue between research and practice.

After graduating as a business teacher in the area of business administration and education, Schulze taught IT, organisation and administration courses for many years at the Akademie für Datenverarbeitung und Organisation in Böblingen. In 1974, he took over a position in the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Culture, where he was responsible for the planning and deployment of IT in higher education institutions across the region. From 1978 to mid-1991, he was actively involved in the establishment and further development of the FIZ Karlsruhe as executive director. He also served as executive director of the Society for Cultural and Scientific Funding Baden-Württemberg and of the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg in Ludwigsburg from 1990 to 1997.