Fraunhofer Center for International Management and Knowledge Economy IMWProfessor Thorsten Posselt celebrates anniversary 2018 as director of Fraunhofer IMW
Ten years with the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft: Professor Thorsten Posselt celebrates anniversary as director of Fraunhofer IMW
Professor Dr. Thorsten Posselt took up his appointment as the director of what is now called the Fraunhofer Center for International Management and Knowledge Economy IMW in Leipzig ten years ago, on 1 February 2008. Professor Dr. Thorsten Posselt, who is a business management and economics graduate and expert, initially headed the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft's socio-economics institute, then called the Fraunhofer Center for Central and Eastern Europe (MOEZ), from 2006 onwards. The institute consolidated its expertise and range of services in 2015 with an international profile and under a new name, the Fraunhofer Center for International Management and Knowledge Economy IMW. As the head of the institute, Professor Posselt contributed considerably to the initiation of the associated change processes, the development of the institute profile and the strategic further development of this non-university based Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft research center in many decisive ways.
“In the past decade of the institute's development and since its establishment in 2006, we have established the innovation-promoting scope that allows the excellent researchers from by now twenty different countries to contribute their perspectives to the institute's interdisciplinary research groups. We are successfully coming up with solutions for the complex issues of the globalized world; solutions that make it possible for us to understand them and that can be applied in a scientifically sound way. At the Fraunhofer IMW, we work on and investigate ecologically and socially fair and economically viable innovations with the global perspective in mind. All of us are working together for the benefit of the knowledge society – we are duty-bound to do so and conduct our research in various worlds of knowledge which we then link by building bridges.”
The economist also teaches as professor for innovation management and innovation economics at the University of Leipzig. As an innovation research expert, he sits on numerous scientific advisory committees. In the current Fraunhofer IMW Annual Report, he discusses the value of the resource knowledge for the IMW's customers and partners from science, political, business and social backgrounds with Dr. Steffen Preissler, the head of the Fraunhofer IMW's Knowledge and Technology Transfer division, and defines the knowledge economy perspective within the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft more precisely.