ZEW Excels in Difficult Economic Times – Wolfgang Franz and Thomas Kohl Pleased about Annual Result 2008

Despite the recessive macro-economic situation and increasingly difficult conditions on national and international research markets, the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim can look back on a very successful year 2008. As last year, ZEW again improved its profitability in the financial year 2008. The annual result 2008 shows that ZEW’s earnings rose to 15.48 million euro, notably exceeding last year’s result (14,47 million euro).

"ZEW’s success in competing for research funding from the Joint Initiative for Research and Innovation within the scientific community Leibniz-Gemeinschaft has contributed to these very good results. Furthermore, ZEW was able to succeed in the tough international competition for third-party funding on economic research and guidance projects", says ZEW president Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Wolfgang Franz. In 2008 ZEW's third-party funds reached with 6.42 million euros the highest level since the institute's foundation in 1991.

"For years, third-party funding has been an essential financial pillar of ZEW with a share of more than 40 percent. This is for instance due to the remarkable success rate of project proposals at German federal and states ministries and at ministries abroad", says Thomas Kohl, Director of business and administration at ZEW. Overall, 39 percent of the third-party funding stems from these sources. The European Commission also significantly contributes to ZEW’s third-party funding with a share of 22 percent. Among the other financiers are enterprises and organisations (21 percent), the German Research Foundation (11 percent) and foundations (7 percent). During the business year 2008 more than 240 research projects for national and international clients were worked on, more than 100 projects were closed and numerous new projects were acquired in competition procedures.

In 2008 ZEW was able to further increase the number of its staff. At the end of 2008, 165 employees worked at ZEW (2007:156), 116 of them were involved in research work. The proportion of women (46 percent) is particularly high at ZEW. This is due to the flexible working hours at ZEW, which were brought in by the institute to support the coordination of family and work.

"ZEW’s high academic quality is also represented by the vast amount of publications in renowned economic journals around the world, which were provided by ZEW researchers in 2008", explains Kohl. "ZEW’s success story features nine dissertations and one habilitation, which were completed last year. They show, that ZEW has actively supported its central principle of qualifying young economists", continues Kohl. At the end of 2008 ZEW’s outstanding performances in the fields research and political counselling were especially acknowledged by a visit of the German Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel.

The annual report also contains information on numerous scientific conferences, which ZEW organised last year, as well as on events for the interested public hosting renowned referees from economics and politics during the series of lectures "Wirtschaftspolitik aus erster Hand" (First-hand information on economics) and the ZEW Wirtschaftsforum (ZEW Economic Forum).

For further information please contact

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