On 2 November 2009, the Joint Scientific Conference of the Federal Government and Federal States (Gemeinsame Wissenschaftskonferenz von Bund und Ländern – GWK) decided to support the Ifo Institute as “primarily a researching institution” as of January 2010. Previously, the Ifo Institute had received its joint subsidy from the federal government and states as an “institution that primarily carries out infrastructural tasks for the scientific community” (service institution). With this decision, the GWK followed a recommendation made by the Senate of the Leibniz Association on 4 March 2009.
In 2006, the Senate of the Leibniz Association, after a thorough evaluation by an international commission of experts, assessed Ifo’s performance as “a good and in some areas very good to excellent in economic research and policy advice” (Leibniz Association, Official Statement 2006, p. 2). The evaluation commission also commented on CESifo GmbH, the joint subsidiary of the LMU and the Ifo Institute, in its report as an excellent institution for the transfer of knowledge and for international cooperation (Leibniz Senate, Official Statement 2006, p. B2.
In its Official Statement of March 2009, the Leibniz Senate recommended the re-conversion of Ifo to a research institute, pointing out that Ifo’s performance, in comparison to 2005, “has again been clearly improved”: “Ifo’s research output in the past three years has been excellent” (Leibniz Senate, Official Statement 2009, p. 3). The Work Programme submitted by the Ifo Institute was assessed by the Leibniz Senate as “thoroughly convincing”. In its assessment report, on which the recommendation of the Leibniz Senate is based, the evaluators commented in addition on Ifo’s policy advice: “The policy advice of Ifo can be assessed as outstanding. The institute has been exceptionally successful in combining internationally competitive research with high-quality, empirically well-founded policy advice” (Evaluation Report 2009, p. 5).
Download as PDF (portions in English) from from the website of the Leibniz Association www.wgl.de: Senatsstellungnahmen zu Einrichtungen der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft
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