Mercator School of Management

The internationalisation and growth in the research performance of the MSM was clearly shown by the increased number of publications in international A+/A journals between 2015 and 2016. In addition, the DFG funded the projects “Cooperative Travelling Salesmen Problems with Rolling Wave Planning” by Prof. Alf Klimms and “Credit-restricted Companies in the Global Economy: Implications for Competition, Welfare and Inequality” by Prof. Tobias Seidel. Professor Marie Paul has been involved in the DFG Priority Programme 1764: The German Labour Market in a Globalized World with the sub-project “Female Employment Patterns, Fertility, Labour Market Reforms, and Social Norms: A Dynamic Treatment Approach”. Moreover the MSM is part of the DFG research training group 1613 “Risk & East Asia” thanks to Professors Werner Pascha and Markus Taube.

The research work of the MSM is supported by almost 20 additional externally-funded projects in the period concerned. A prime example of this can be seen in projects funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), such as “CrowdStrom – Crowdsourcing Charging Services Provided by Private Persons as an Innovative Business Model” (Prof. Margret Borchert) and “DEAL – Service Innovations and Electromobility – the Automotive Trade as a Full-Service Provider” (Prof. Gertrud Schmitz, Prof. Margret Borchert). Likewise, the BMBF funding supports the IN-EAST School of Advanced Studies, led by Prof. Markus Taube. Prof. Volker Breithecker worked on projects in the fields of Innovation Screening, Social Innovation Barcamp, Innopreneur in Residence, Innovation Pitch and Business Design Camp (InnovationHUB) with EU funding.

In relation to knowledge transfer, three specific conferences held at the UDE in 2016 deserve particular mention: Prof. Li and Prof. Taube organised the 27th (EU) Annual Conference of the Chinese Economic Association (Europe/UK), which took place between 1 and 3 September 2016 at the Duisburg campus and the Mercator Hall in the city of Duisburg with great success. With the 20th bank symposium “Complexity Kills – Banks in the Jungle of Regulation and Outdated Structures” on 7/8 September 2016 and the specialist conference “ecfs Cost Day: Balancing Innovation and Reducing Costs” on 14 June 2016, the Banking & Finance faculty hosted two highly successful conferences. Meanwhile, the small business management (sbm) project led by Prof. Volker Breithecker continues to provide courses on company start-ups and succession and is now in its seventeenth year.