Prof. Dietmar Harhoff, Ph.D., has been appointed Director of the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law in Munich. With effect from March 1st, 2013, the researcher on innovation is head of the newly founded Munich Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research (MCIER). Since 1998 Prof. Harhoff has directed the Institute for Innovation Research, Technology Management and Entrepreneurship (INNO-tec) at the Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich (LMU). He will remain associated to the LMU as honorary professor in the department of business administration. Dietmar Harhoff is also director of the Entrepreneurship Center of the LMU, as well as the chair of the Commission of Experts for Research and Innovation (EFI) since February 2007. The EFI Commission provides scientific advice to the German government and periodically delivers reports on research, innovation and technological productivity in Germany. The EFI 2013 annual report has been presented most recently by Dietmar Harhoff and the Commission to German Chancellor Merkel on February 27th, 2013.
With the Munich Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research, the Max Planck Institute is further extending its leading role in fundamental research on questions of the protection of intangible goods such as inventions or creative works and the legal regulation of competition mechanisms and competitive behavior. At the MCIER fundamental issues in innovation and entrepreneurship processes will be explored in six fields of research "IPR Systems and Innovation", "Science, Research and Innovation Policies", "Innovation Management", "Culture, Institutions and Innovation", "Entrepreneurship and Innovation" and "Innovation Motives and Behavior".
The new research department at the Max Planck Institute will thus continue to work within a broader framework on subjects that were formerly pursued at INNO- tec under Prof. Harhoff's direction. The Research at MCIER also serves to reinforce the MPI's interdisciplinary approach to research questions at the interface between the disciplines of law and economics.