Research

The Department of Business and Economics is committed to methodological diversity, interdisciplinarity and theoretical grounding. We have strong research expertise in management, finance and economic theory. Two research clusters bundle the activities within the department.

The first is focused on the field of empirical economic research. A member of the department is spokesperson for the UA Ruhr competence field of the same name, which facilitates cooperation within the three Ruhr area universities as well as the Leibniz Institute RWI, Essen. The methodology of quantitative research opens up numerous natural cooperation partners; in classical econometrics the Department of Statistics is as excellent a fit as the Department of Computer Science is for machine learning methods. Our strength in the field of empirical economic research is particularly evident in our participation in the SFB 823 "Statistical modeling of nonlinear dynamic processes", which is coming to an end, and in the current SFB 1569 "Spatio-temporal Statistics for Sustainable Decision-Making". In addition, we are conducting research within RTG 2484 "Regional Disparities and Economic Policy Making".

In addition to the empirical group, the second research cluster is focused on entrepreneurship and technology/innovation management (TIE) as well as digital transformation. These involve industry collaborations as well as the further development of international collaborations.

Both groups include a large number of university lecturers and there are interdisciplinary collaborations, for example between law and digital journalism or machine learning and finance. Furthermore, the department is committed to the promotion of young academics in doctoral education - among others in cooperation with the Ruhr Alliance within the framework of the Ruhr Graduate School - and the responsibility of qualifying them for the academic job market.

Below is an overview of current projects and research results.