School Students Visit ZEW for Kick-Off of the YES! – Young Economic Summit 2017

What is sustainable consumption? How can Europe meet the challenges associated with the rise of the right-wing parties? Is there such a thing as fair taxation? These are some of the current issues that 22 teams consisting of school students in the grades 10–12 from six different federal states will discuss over the course of the YES! – Young Economic Summit, one of the biggest school competitions aimed at young people which deals with economic and social issues. On 17 February 2017, eleven teams of around 135 students from Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Hesse and Saarland took part in the kick-off event for the Southwest region at the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim. On 24 February 2017, there will be another kick-off event in Kiel for the eleven teams from Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg.

During the kick-off meeting, the first of many events that will take place within the framework of the YES! – Young Economic Summit, ZEW Director of Business and Administration, Thomas Kohl, welcomed the participating teams to ZEW. In his speech, he emphasised that participating in the project as a scientific partner provides a unique opportunity for ZEW since it allows the institute to contribute to a better understanding of economic issues among young people. "ZEW has always placed great emphasis on education and training," said Kohl. "The YES! competition is a great chance for us to investigate current issues from the perspective of the younger generation."

Opportunity to learn about the topics and meet the mentors

During the kick-off event, Dr. Willi Scholz from the Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (ZBW), Dr. Wolf Frießen from the Joachim Herz Stiftung, and the YES! team outlined the process and objectives of the project, and presented the topics the students will work on. Afterwards, the school teams met with the ZEW researchers, who will support the students in their scientific work. The event provided a great opportunity for the students to exchange ideas with their mentors and to discuss their topics as well as methods and objectives before developing solutions to their assigned projects.

School teams show great interest in various topics

The students showed great interest in all of the ten topics proposed during the event, including, for example, the topic "European integration and the rise of nationalist populist parties." After speaking with ZEW researcher Sebastian Blesse, Tobias Prüßmeier, a student at Hohe Landesschule Hanau, explained, "I am very much interested in political issues and have long been concerned with the topic of European integration. The fact that we will have to present our solutions in English at the end of the competition is a challenge, but it is also a great opportunity to gain experience. I am looking forward to that."

About YES! – Young Economic Summit

YES! is a joint project of the German National Library of Economics (ZBW) – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics and the Joachim Herz Stiftung. School students come up with their own solutions to global economic, ecological and social problems and present them in English as part of a conference for other students, 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 will receive continued support and guidance in topics such as research, presentation and media relations. The academic mentoring part of the programme involves experts from four different Leibniz institutions supporting school teams with their scientific work and devising their solutions. As well as the ZWB, these institutions are ZEW in Mannheim, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW) and the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies in Hamburg.

Participating schools in the Southwest region

Over the course of the project, ZEW researchers will provide mentoring for school students from the following schools in the Southwest region:

• Albert-Einstein-Gymnasium Ulm
• Albert-Schweitzer-Gymnasium Dillingen
• Albertus-Magnus-Gymnasium Stuttgart
• BBS Wirtschaft 1 Ludwigshafen
• Friedrich-List-Schule Mannheim
• Geschwister-Scholl-Gymnasium Stuttgart
• Heinrich-Heine-Gymnasium Kaiserslautern
• Hohe Landesschule Hanau
• Paul-Weber-Schule BBZ Homburg
• Gymnasium am Steinwald Neunkirchen
• Werner-Heisenberg-Gymnasium Weinheim