Fraunhofer Center for International Management and Knowledge Economy IMWFraunhofer IMW's Board of Trustees discusses current research perspectives of the socio- and techno-economic Fraunhofer Institute
Once a year, the high-ranking members of the Fraunhofer IMW Board of Trustees meet to advise the institute on issues of content and strategic development. They promote the networking of researchers at the socio- and techno-economic Fraunhofer Institute in Leipzig in the fields of business, politics and society. Chairman of the Board of Trustees is Dr. Wilhelm Krull, founding director of The New Institute. Arndt G. Kirchhoff, Chairman of the Advisory Board of the KIRCHHOFF Group, serves as Vice Chairman.
For the 11th meeting of the Fraunhofer IMW's Board of Trustees, the trustees met again for the first time after the pandemic in Leipzig on Tuesday, 19.9.2023. The Chairman of the Fraunhofer IMW's Board of Trustees, Dr. Krull, together with the Head of the Institute, Prof. Thorsten Posselt and Dr. Christian Growitsch, handed over the certificates of appointment from the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft Executive Board to three new members of the Board of Trustees and warmly welcomed Sonja Jost, Dipl. -Ing. and Managing Director of the green chemistry startup "DexLeChem" and Dr. Volker Treier, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce DIHK. Both received their certificate of appointment in person at the Board of Trustees meeting. In addition, we are pleased to welcome Dr. Dorothea Wenzel, member of the Supervisory Board of Fresenius Medical Care and member of the Management Board of H. Lundbeck A/S and Dentsply Sirona as a new trustee.
At this year's meeting of the Fraunhofer IMW's Board of Trustees, the Institute's Executive Director Prof. Dr. Thorsten Posselt, the Institute's Director Priv.-Doz. Dr. Christian Growitsch and Deputy Director Dr. Steffen Preissler shared insights into current research perspectives of the socio- and techno-economic Fraunhofer Institute.
The main topics were structural change in the eastern German coalfields, the potential of industrial transformation for research- and technology-intensive companies in Saxony and current perspectives of knowledge and technology transfer.
In two working groups, the trustees discussed research priorities of the Fraunhofer IMW with the researchers. Dr. Daniela Pufky-Heinrich, Division Head and Head of the Center for Economics of Materials CEM, moderated one working group that focused on current research on "Industrial transformation". Dr. Anna Pohle, Head of the Innovation Policy and Transfer Design Unit, and Dr. Benjamin Klement, Head of the Innovative Regions Unit, moderated the working group "Designing Innovation Ecosystems", in which they presented and classified current structural change projects as innovation systems to the curators.
The institute directors Prof. Posselt and Dr. Growitsch thanked all members of the board of trustees for their work and support beyond the annual meetings.
