Farewell to Meinhard Knoche

The 68th Annual Meeting of the ifo Institute took place on Wednesday 28 June 2017 in the Great Hall of the University of Munich. The public part of this year’s event was devoted to the retirement of ifo Executive Board member Meinhard Knoche. Over the course of his 22 year term of office at the ifo Institute Meinhard Knoche made a major contribution to building the ifo Institute up into a leading research institute both in Germany and internationally. Accordingly this year’s event focused on the topic of: “Germany as a Science and Innovation Base.” LMU President Bernd Huber began the event by warmly welcoming Meinhard Knoche, describing him as the longstanding “good spirit” of the ifo Institute and by thanking him on behalf of all of those present for his outstanding services to ifo. In his brief speech ifo President Clemens Fuest also emphasized the crucial nature of Meinhard Knoche’s role in the success of the ifo Institute. At the beginning of his keynote speech on the topic “Integrating academia and business: teaming up to boost innovation” Georg Schütte, Permanent State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, joined Clemens Fuest in wishing Meinhard Knoche all the very best for the future both personally and on behalf of the Federal Minister of Education and Research Johanna Wanka. His speech focused on the potential for improving the framework conditions for academia and business in order to boost innovation in the future. “Joint Research as an Innovation Strategy” was the topic of the speech given by Matthias Kleiner, President of the Leibniz Association, who noted that a solution to today’s major crises can only be found via scientific cooperation across various disciplines. The sustainability of Germany’s position as a science and innovation base was discussed in greater detail in the expert panel discussion that followed these speeches, in which Clemens Fuest and Meinhard Knoche were joined by Milagros Caiña-Andree, Executive Board member of BMW, and Angelika Niebler, Member of the European Parliament.