Institute News

Academics from all over the world discussed international data regulation on various continents and critically explored future options for action. The thematically diverse program was dedicated to central data law issues and opened with a keynote speech by Michal Gal (University of Haifa) on “The Effects of Legal Data Regimes on the Global Data Race”.

In the following four sections of the conference, data trust models, questions of data localization and data sharing as well as suitable international regulatory forums were presented and controversially discussed. The question of how to deal with the phenomenon of so-called data colonialism was also the subject of presentations and discussions.

At the end of the event, Josef Drexl presented the Institute’s project group “Data Governance in Emerging Economies to Promote the Sustainable Development Goals”, which includes several researchers from the Institute. Numerous poster presentations, in which scientists presented current research projects and discussed them with interested conference participants, completed the event.

The program of the anniversary event traced the development of the department for “Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research” and the interdisciplinarity at the Institute. The archive reports on the  appointment of Dietmar Harhoff and subsequent  renaming of the Institute as the “Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition” tell the story of the department, to which reference was made.

After introductory words by Prof. Dietmar Harhoff, Ph.D., a panel discussion was held in which a decade of progress in the research field and the department was reflected upon. The panel discussion was moderated by Dr. Zhaoxin Pu (DataGuard), who herself completed her doctorate at the Institute in 2020, and at present works for a company specializing in data protection, information security, and compliance.

Prof. Dr. Fabian Gaessler, now Assistant Professor at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, showed in his contribution how research at the interface of management, economics, law, and computer science, leads to a “cross-pollination”, so to speak, with an input of doctoral students from various institutions and a throughput of postdocs from renowned research institutions (EPFL, Cornell University, ZEW, KAIST, Northwestern University, Mines Paris Tech, University of Cape Town, Goethe University and many more). This qualifies for positions in various sectors and has led the former Research Fellows into industry, start-ups and spin-offs (octimine technologies), or to EPO, bidt, and other research institutions (e.g., KU Leuven, Erasmus University, Politecnico di Milano, Bocconi University, University of Groningen, Ingolstadt University of Technology, Bundeswehr University).

Prof. Laura Rosendahl Huber, Ph.D., who is now Assistant Professor at the Rotterdam School of Management and is, inter alia, conducting research on gender differences, portrayed the development of the department into an increasingly diverse and international team in her presentation of photos and memories.

Prof. Bronwyn Hall, Ph.D., Emerita Professor at the University of California Berkeley, and Affiliate of the department, examined the department’s publication figures  and noted a constantly growing publication output.

Dr. Matthias Lamping, Senior Research Fellow, gave an entertaining account of the expectations of the legal colleagues that were associated with the establishment of an economics department. It quickly became apparent that interdisciplinarity cannot be established at the push of a button, but that ideas on common research questions grow together through continuous dialogue.

Dr. Alexander Suyer, also a former doctoral student of Dietmar Harhoff and now Research Coordinator at the Institute, started with the Institute’s Mission Statement to reflect on Dietmar Harhoff's many years of engagement in evidence-based policy advice at the national and federal state level.

In his speech, Prof. Dr. Josef Drexl expressed in particular appreciation for the colleague, scientist, and person Dietmar Harhoff.

Very refreshing and impressive were the subsequent “elevator pitches”, short presentations by young researchers from both the economics and law departments of the Institute, which ranged from core innovation and patent research to gender issues in innovation and entrepreneurship, digital markets, platforms and artificial intelligence to green tech, and showed that the young scientists have grown and settled in interdisciplinary exchange.

In an interactive memory lane game, the Junior Research Fellows Ann-Christin Kreyer and Timm Opitz then presented surprising, interesting, and amusing facts and figures that required the knowledge and judgment of those present.

A special surprise was presented at the end of the afternoon event: In a video greeting, the Federal Minister of Education and Research Bettina Stark-Watziger honored the ten-year anniversary of the department for “Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research” as well as Dietmar Harhoff personally as a “particularly influential voice for innovation and competition” who was and is heard by policymakers.

At the subsequent reception in the Institute’s Grand Hall, attendees were invited to step into the time machine, and look at the project posters from the first poster session in 2013, which were set up in order to trace the significant changes and developments of the last ten years in terms of both subject matters and persons.

The evening dinner event, which was dedicated to the exchange between the Alumni and Alumnae of the economics department and the current team, was introduced by piano music in the Max Planck Hall of the Akademischer Gesangverein München (Academic Choral Society), which Max Planck joined at the age of 16 – a lesser-known facet of his talents. Dietmar Harhoff was thanked by his team with a special gift based on the idea and initiative of Senior Research Fellow Dr. Marina Chugunova, who researches human-machine interactions, inter alia: an image generated by artificial intelligence fed with prompts from the team. The fact that humans are still indispensable for achieving outstanding creative results was demonstrated by the commitment of Sebastian Erhardt, also known as “SebGPT”, who gave the result an extra boost.

Special thanks for her commitment and creativity in organizing the event went to Junior Research Fellow  Svenja Friess.

More:

Video Greeting (in German) of the Federal Minister of Education and Research Bettina Stark-Watzinger

LinkedIn Post on the event by Prof. Dr. Claudia Lieske (Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt)

This year, for the 7^th edition already, the members of the organizing team from ETH Zurich’s Center for Law & Economics, the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Technical University of Munich, and ISTO at LMU Munich were joined by Christian Peukert from HEC Lausanne and Imke Reimers from Northeastern University.

The main conference program comprised 3 keynote lectures, 17 plenary presentations and a daily poster session, including a poster slam.

The first conference day, which was co-organized by Tobias Kretschmer, Christian Peukert, and Imke Reimers, focused on “Creative Industries”, the “Pandemic Push”, the “Regulatory Push”, and “Algorithmic Pricing”. The day’s keynote address was delivered by Nigel Melville, who is an Associate Professor of Technology and Operations at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Management. His topic was “Advancing Environmental Sustainability in the Fourth Industrial Revolution”.

Chaired by Dietmar Harhoff, Joachim Henkel, and Hanna Hottenrott, the presentations of the second conference day related to “Knowledge Production”, “R&D and Death”, “R&D and War”, and “R&D, Grants and Taxes”. In her keynote lecture “Incentives and the Social Fabric of Knowledge Work: Evidence from Field Experiments”, Jana Gallus provided evidence from three field experiments to shed light on the effects of non-monetary incentives on knowledge production. Jana Gallus is an Associate Professor of Strategy and Behavioral Decision Making at the Anderson School of Management of the University of California, Los Angeles.

Traditionally, the second day ended with a hearty dinner in a typical Bavarian Inn. During the evening, Kimia Heidary from the University of Leiden received the MSI Ph.D. Workshop’s Best Paper Award for her work “All Is (Not) Fair in Personalized Pricing: Antecedents and Outcomes of Consumer Fairness Perceptions”.

The third and last conference day – chaired by Stefan Bechtold, Imke Reimers, and again Christian Peukert – covered a wide range of innovation-related topics, including “IP & Gender”, trademark and patent law, and a final presentation on innovation in the cannabis market. David L. Schwartz, Frederic P. Vose Professor of Law at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law, gave a keynote presentation on the topic “When Companies Choose Inside Counsel: A Case Study from Patents”.

On behalf of the organizers, we would like to thank all speakers, discussants, and attendees  for a fascinating Munich Summer Institute 2023. We are already looking forward to the Munich Summer Institute 2024, which will take place from 22 to 24 May 2024!

The full program of the MSI 2023 can be found here.

The program of the 2^nd MSI Ph.D. Workshop is available here.

More information on the MSI website.

The Conference addressed the importance of technology transfer and regional innovation for Latin American countries to develop their great potential for the production of renewable energies in an economically sustainable manner.What are the challenges and the appropriate regulatory frameworks to achieve these objectives? Innovative companies and specialists in regulation from different areas of the renewable energy sector discussed these issues in the first Conference panel.
 

Based on its results, academics from different Latin American countries discussed in the second and third panels the need for regulatory adjustments in the fields of technology transfer contracts and competition law.

Reto Hilty hold a talk at the inauguration of the local Observatory and at the opening of the Conference. Pedro Henrique D. Batista, Research Fellow at the Institute, moderated the first panel of the Conference.

Originally launched in Turin, the workshop location rotates between major European research locations such as the Centre for Research on Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Bath (2018), the GREThA at the Université de Bordeaux-CNRS (2019), and KU Leuven in (2022). Already in 2020, the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition hosted the 14th WOEPSR. However, it could only take place online due to the coronavirus pandemic. Next year, the workshop is set to return to its founding institution, the University of Turin.

The organizing team of WOEPSR 2023 included Dietmar Harhoff, Michael E. Rose, and Elisabeth Hofmeister from the Max Planck Institute of Innovation and Competition. Joint organizers were Hanna Hottenrott, Thomas Schaper, and Julian Schwierzy from TUM.

This year’s workshop was finally held in person again. Everyone markedly enjoyed the personal exchange over the course of the workshop: recurring participants reunited, while aspiring researchers had an excellent opportunity to network within this enthusiastic community.

The 18 presentations in five sessions over two days were very well received by up to 60 participants. A particular highlight was the panel discussion themed “AI and Science” that included panelists from both industry and academia. The audience could engage in an in-depth discussion of what AI changes in science ‒ and what remains untouched.

The Topics at a Glance

The first day started with presentations on the role of universities in coordinating scientific research as well as the impact of the working language in research institutions on attracting scientific talent. In the second session, presenters investigated the effects of different political shocks on scientists’ productivity as well as the ties between domestic and foreign scientists. The day continued with questions related to different ways of research funding, such as grant schemes and procurement measures. In the last session, presenters examined the search process of scientists as well as the impact of advisor relationships on individual careers.

As a tribute to the late Paul A. David, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University, the first day concluded with a memorial session. Paul, who sadly passed away earlier this year, was not only a pivotal scholar in the economics of scientific progress and technical change, but an esteemed and long-standing member of the WOEPSR scientific committee. Many friends and family members attended the session, both in person and online, to share their personal memories.

In honor of Paul David’s contributions to this field, the “2023 WOEPSR Award in Memory of Paul A. David” was presented to Dror Shvadron for his work “Bread Upon the Waters: Corporate Science and the Benefits from Follow-on Public Research”. The award will be given annually to a young economist under the age of 40 or within less than 10 years of receiving a doctoral degree.

The second day began with two presentations on the benefits of publicly funded research. The final session of the workshop titled “AI in Science and Innovation” took up questions from the panel discussion. Presenters not only investigated how AI can act as a manager in science projects, but also showed how novel AI applications can be used to better measure two common concepts in the economics of science: the impact of science and the origin of ideas.

See the complete program with all topics here.

More information on the workshop website and further impressions on Twitter under #woepsr2023.

We thank all organizing parties involved as well as all participants, speakers and discussants for a truly exceptional and inspiring workshop and look forward to WOEPSR 2024 in Turin.

More than 40 international young researchers from over 20 universities around the globe attended the RISE 5 Workshop on 19 and 20 December 2022. For the fifth time now, the two-day event was organized by Ph.D. students from the Department for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research to give young scholars the opportunity to present and discuss their work.

After two years of being held online due to the pandemic, this year’s workshop finally took place again in person in Munich, much to the delight of all participants. The program was exciting and covered the topics of Economics of Innovation, Knowledge Diffusion, Entrepreneurship and Artificial Intelligence. Twelve selected doctoral students and recent graduates presented their work, which was then discussed by experienced researchers.

On the first day, the workshop was kicked off with a session on Knowledge Spillovers and Innovation Across Borders. Current research on the effect of antitrust enforcement against patent-based monopolies on innovation was presented, as well as how knowledge spillovers drive the relationship between clustering and firm innovation. The second session focused on Artificial Intelligence and Innovation. Speakers presented their work on how firms should design human-AI-collaboration to ensure that human workers remain engaged in their activities. On the other hand, the impact of AI on innovation activities of firms was demonstrated using the example of hospital suppliers.

A special highlight of the day and the event was the inspiring keynote by Robert Seamans, Associate Professor of Management and Organizations and Director of the Center for the Future of Management at NYU Stern School of Business. He spoke on “AI and Robots - What’s New Here If Anything?” and presented results from a 2019 U.S. Census Bureau survey on the use of robotics in U.S. manufacturing establishments. His research shows a high degree of spatial concentration of robotized manufacturers, explained in part by complementary resources in a region, such as a qualified work force or robot integrator companies. His presentation sparked a vivid discussion about the limits of measuring AI and robots and the implications for the economy.

Entrepreneurship was the theme of the closing session of the first day. New research shows that greater emotional coherence expressed in venture pitches of start-ups can increase venture outcomes.

The second day raised numerous highly relevant questions about the Determinants of Innovation Incentives, the Direction of Research, Knowledge Diffusion and Protection and Access to Information. How do people at work strategically seek advice, and do others’ priors about their competence affect these strategies? How do scientists respond to increased demand for innovation in electric vehicle technologies and the quality of research outputs? Can diversity lead to greater research focus on populations underrepresented in science? What is the impact of academic science on corporate innovation? How do heterogeneous European legal regimes affect the patent litigation strategies of on non-practicing entities? Are research papers more frequently cited when research data is disclosed? And finally, what is the significance of Google for scientific research?

See the complete program with all topics here and check out the coverage on Twitter under #RISE5Workshop.

We thank all participants, including the fantastic keynote speaker, thorough discussants and great presenters for a truly outstanding RISE5 Workshop 2022. Our special thanks go to everyone who was so involved in the organization, in particular Sebastian Erhardt, Mainak Ghosh, Klaus Keller and Ann-Christin Kreyer. With great enthusiasm and motivation, we look forward to the RISE6 Workshop 2023 – again in person at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich.