Award  |  03/18/2022

Two Otto Hahn Medals for Young Researchers of the Institute

Dr. Daria Kim and Dr. Felix Pöge, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition who both completed their doctoral theses in 2021, have been awarded the Otto Hahn Medal by the Max Planck Society in recognition of their outstanding scientific achievements. 

The Legal Scholar Daria Kim


The legal scholar Daria Kim receives the award for her work on “Access to Non-Summary Clinical Trial Data for Research Purposes Under EU Law”, a study on the regulation of access to data collected during clinical trials in order to improve future drug research.


Daria Kim provides in her dissertation an in-depth study on the regulation of access to patient-level data generated in the context of clinical trials. As an interdisciplinary study, it integrates the insights from medical research, economics and public policy into normative legal analysis. The author elaborates a proposal of how the rules on access to data can be designed on the EU level to reconcile the policy objectives of leveraging the knowledge potential of data through exploratory analysis in the interest of society at large while protecting innovation incentives of research-based drug companies. She thereby substantially contributes to the further development of the legal system designed to promote innovation against the backdrop of the current development of digitization.


Daria Kim is now a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute.


The Economist Felix Pöge


The economist Felix Pöge is awarded for his dissertation on “Corporate Innovation – The Role of Scientific Discoveries, Taxation and Antitrust” which makes important contributions to the analysis of innovation processes, in particular the impact of competition on innovation outcomes.


In four essays, Felix Pöge answers pressing research questions and examines how the quality of scientific contributions, corporate taxation, corporate participation in scientific conferences, and industry structure affect innovation outcomes. In his most comprehensive essay, he looks at the breakup of IG Farben after World War II and its impact on competition and innovation in the chemical sector. Pöge concludes that the politically motivated breakup led to a substantial increase in competition, which was reflected in lower prices for a large number of chemical products and in an increase in patenting activities by the companies affected by the breakup. For the current debate on the effects of mergers on competition and innovation, this historical study provides important evidence and implies that mergers can harm both competition and innovation.


Felix Pöge is now a Postdoctoral Associate at the Technology & Policy Research Initiative at Boston University. 


The Max Planck Society has been awarding the prize for outstanding scientific achievements, named after the „father of nuclear chemistry” Otto Emil Hahn (1879–1968), since 1978. The prize is endowed with 7,500 euros and is intended to motivate young talented scientists to pursue a research career.


The Otto Hahn Medal for Young Scientists will be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Max Planck Society on 22 June 2022 in Berlin.


We congratulate the award winners!



Access to Non-Summary Clinical Trial Data for Research Purposes Under EU Law (pdf and epub)

Corporate Innovation – The Role of Scientific Discoveries, Taxation and Antitrust (pdf)