Diverse research areas
In 2017, faculty members successfully secured external project funding from the European Union, federal and state ministries, as well as other external funders. Faculty members also presented their research at international conferences and published their research in high-ranking field-specific journals such as Management Accounting Research, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, and The Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.
In the last weekend of February 2017, the Chair of HRM and Asian Business (Prof. Dr. Dr. Fabian J. Froese) hosted the kick-off workshop of the EU-funded K.I.T.F.E.M. project. The abbreviation K.I.T.F.E.M. stands for “Knowledge and Innovation in, to and from Emerging Markets” and centres on the agents, antecedents, boundary conditions and the processes that facilitate or hinder the transfer of knowledge and innovation across borders in the corporate environment. K.I.T.F.E.M. is funded through the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions programme which is part of the EU’s Horizon 2020. The project coordinator is Prof. Dr. Yingying Zhang of the Colegio Universitario Estudios Financieros (CUNEF) in Madrid, Spain. Apart from Prof. Froese, academics from nine different nations are participating in the project. It will be funded until 2019.
The Chair of HRM and Asian Business also hosted the International Conference on Human Resource Management in China and East Asia during the last weekend of May. The conference was co-organized by the Beijing Normal University Business School, China, and sponsored by the Academic Confucius Institute at the University of Göttingen.
The Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure will also be funding the research project "SustEnergyPort - Simulationsbasierte Bewertung von Maßnahmen zur Steigerung der Energienachhaltigkeit im Hafenbetrieb" (simulation-based evaluation of measures that improve energy sustainability in port operations) until 2019. The project is managed by the Chair of Production and Logistics (Prof. Dr. Jutta Geldermann). The project will develop structured, model-based processes and content so that measures can be customized for port-based companies to improve their energy efficiency and identify uses of renewable energies thereby improving their environmental impact and profitability.
The 2016 innovation grant from the Gemeinsamen Bundesausschuss (Federal Joint Committee, the highest decision-making body of the joint self-government of physicians, dentists, hospitals and health insurance funds in Germany) for the external project "Effekte von Strategien zur Verbesserung ärztlich-pflegerischer Zusammenarbeit auf Krankenhausaufnahmen von Pflegeheimbewohnern - interprof ACT" (effects of strategies for the improvement of medical care on hospital intake of nursing home patients) will continue until 2020. The aim is to apply a package of measures to improve both cooperation and communication of care staff and medical doctors to reduce hospital intake of nursing home patients. From the Faculty, Prof. Dr. Indre Maurer, Chair of Organisation and Corporate Development is participating in the project.
The Digital Transformation Research Centre (DTRC) of the Chair for Information Management of Prof. Dr. Lutz M Kolbe, under the leadership of Dr. Andre Hanelt, has been awarded the Fellowship in Digital Transformation for visiting researchers for the first time. The Fellowship supports the cooperation of top international researchers in digital transformation. Peng Huang, Assistant Professor in the Department of Decision, Operations, and Information Technologies at the Robert H. Smith School of Business of the University of Maryland was the visiting research fellow in the summer term. His research is in platform technology and innovation ecosystems, knowledge-sharing virtual communities, as well as consumer search and decision making in e-commerce.
The study "Ländermonitor berufliche Bildung 2017" (federal state monitor of vocational training in 2017) was published on 18 December. It was developed for the Bertelsmann Foundation by Prof. Dr. Martin Baethge, President of Das Soziologische Forschungsinstitut Göttingen (the Sociological Research Institute Göttingen), and Prof. Dr. Susan Seeber, the Chair of Business Education and Human Resource Development.
Prof. Dr. Holger Strulik, the Chair of Macroeconomics and Development at the Faculty of Economic Sciences, is now ranked as the top research-focused economist in the German-speaking world, according to the new Handelsblatt ranking. In places 35 and 44 are respectively, Prof. Dr. Helmut Herwartz (Chair of Econometrics) and Prof. Stephan Klasen, PhD (Chair of Development Economics). Recent research was evaluated for the ranking, primarily publications in prestigious field-specific journals within the last five years. The ranking included 100 academics. In terms of overall research performance ("Lebenswerk"), the Göttingen researchers placed 14 (Holger Strulik), 94 (Stephan Klasen) und 106 (Helmut Herwartz). 250 researchers were evaluated for this overall research ranking. In the ranking of the best research faculties in economics, Göttingen placed number 6, up three places from the last evaluation in 2015.
Prof. Dr. Thomas Kneib (Chair of Statistics) is participating in a new Research Training Group (RTG) in forestry sciences, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), which started in September 2017 for an initial time period of four and a half years. Researchers will investigate the question of whether mixed stands of beech and other tree species are more versatile as pure beech forests. In the RTG 2300 "Erhöhung der Baumartendiversität von Buchenwäldern durch Koniferen: zur Bedeutung funktionaler Merkmale für die Funktionalität von Ökosystemen" (Enrichment of European beech forests with conifers: impacts of functional traits on ecosystem functioning), researchers from the Faculty of Forest Sciences and Forest Ecology, and Faculty of Economic Sciences work in cooperation with experts from the Faculty of Biology and Psychology, and the Northwest German Forest Research Institute in Göttingen.
In February, the International Economic Relations workshop took place for the 19th time, with around 60 participants who conduct research on areas such as international financial interdependencies, strategic multinational businesses and problems of European integration. The workshop takes place every year. The organizers are Prof. Dr. Gerhard Rübel (Chair of International and Monetary Economics) and Prof. Dr. Carsten Eckel (Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich).
In April 2017 (and in 2016), Prof. Dr. Claudia Keser (Chair of Microeconomics and head of committee) organized the annual conference of the social sciences committee of the Verein für Socialpolitik (the German Economic Association) in Göttingen.
Following a conference of members of the European Development Research Network (EUDN) in December, the Chair for Development Economics organized a public discussion with support from the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development titled: "Inequality Reduction in Developing Countries: What can the International Community do?"
After a lecture by Prof. Peter Lanjouw, PhD, from the Free University of Amsterdam (VU Amsterdam), there was a panel discussion with Prof. em. Francois Bourguignon (Paris School of Economics), Prof. Dr. Eva Terberger (University of Mannheim/ KfW Development Bank), Max Büge (GIZ), and Tobias Hauschild (Oxfam). Prof. Stephan Klasen, PhD (Chair of Development Economics), moderated the panel and also currently serves as the president of the EUDN.