Fraunhofer ISI Receives Good Marks in Economic Sciences
Among all German economic science institutions (universities as well as research institutes) there are only eight that are above average in the international comparison. The Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI, Karlsruhe belongs to this group. This was shown by an international study on economic research that the German Science Council (Wissenschaftsrat) commissioned. Concerning the frequency with which the Fraunhofer ISIs publications are quoted in international, economic journals, the institutes average of 3.2 quotes per study is above the worldwide average of 2.9. The average citation rate of German publications is only 2.1. In addition, the Fraunhofer ISI takes a leading position in the management category. Among the German institutions with the most-cited publications it ranks just behind the University of Kiel. This result is all the more astonishing, since the Fraunhofer ISI is not a classic institute for economic research and, due to its research which is widely interdisciplinarily oriented, only about a third of its approximately 80 scientists are economists. Moreover, the Science Council observes in its recommendations that German economic research as a whole receives too little international attention. A particular deficit exists in the sections of economics in which questions pertaining to economics and economic policy are empirically investigated with the help of quantitative survey and analysis methods. The good marks for the Fraunhofer ISI are a confirmation of the institutes strategy since the beginning of the 1990s to strengthen its scientific orientation and to place emphasis on personnel that couples applied research with scientific career goals. Furthermore, the Fraunhofer ISI as a non-university institute fulfills another important requirement of the Science Council: the strong links to universities as well as an international orientation. Intensive institutional connections (e.g. through joint research groups) exist between the Fraunhofer ISI and the Louis Pasteur Unversity (Strasbourg, France), the University of Utrecht (The Netherlands) and the University of Karlsruhe as well as the ETH-Zurich/Lausanne (Switzerland) and the Freiberg TU Bergakademie.,The Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI complements the techno-scientific spectrum of the Fraunhofer Society with economic and societal aspects, analyzing technological developments, their market potentials and their impacts on economy, state and society. The Institutes interdisciplinary teams focus their work especially on the fields of energy, environment, production, communication and biotechnology, as well as regional research and research policy.,