After two years in office, the members of ECONtribute have confirmed Professor Thomas Dohmen in Bonn and Professor Matthias Heinz in Cologne as spokespersons of the Cluster of Excellence. The team is completed by Wiso Professor Pia Pinger, who shares the role of spokesperson with Matthias Heinz as part of a newly introduced job sharing model. Job sharing is not yet widespread in academia, and ECONtribute would like to use it to help balance work and family.
“We would like to thank the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Rectorates in Bonn and Cologne for the uncomplicated implementation and legal establishment of the model. We want to enable researchers in every family phase to actively participate in the development and management of the Cluster and make this possible through family-friendly conditions,” says the Cluster’s managing director, Dr. Carola Braun. “We hope that other scientific institutions will soon follow our example and that job sharing will become a more established model in scientific institutions,” she adds.
The new term of office will begin on October 1, 2023 and will last for two years. In addition to the spokespersons, new members of the Steering Committee, the Equal Opportunities Committee, the Young ECONtribute Committee and the Committee for Research-Policy Interactions were also elected. A list of the members can be found on the website of the Cluster of Excellence.
ECONtribute: Markets & Public Policy, is a joint initiative of the Universities of Bonn and Cologne. Since 2019, ECONtribute: Markets & Public Policy is funded as a Cluster of Excellence under the German Excellence Strategy. ECONtribute is the only Cluster of Excellence in Economics and neighbouring disciplines. ECONtribute aims to advance the analysis of markets & public policy in light of fundamental societal and technological challenges, such as digitalization, global financial crises, rising inequality and political polarization.