On July 1, 2026, economist Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Christoph Schmidt will take office as President of the Leibniz Association. He visited PRIF in advance to get to know the institute.
Christoph Schmidt has been President of the RWI – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research in Essen since 2002 and holds the Chair of Economic Policy and Applied Econometrics at the Ruhr University Bochum. He is also a member of the Expert Commission for Research and Innovation (EFI) and was part of the German Council of Economic Experts from 2009 to 2020. In December 2025, Schmidt was elected by the general assembly of the Leibniz Association as the successor to the current president, Martina Brockmeier. He will head the executive committee and the board of the research association for the next for years.
We seized the opportunity of the visit to present our main areas of research and transfer initiatives. In the discussion, we emphasized the high degree of interdisciplinarity between the social sciences, humanities, and natural sciences at our institute. This not only enables comprehensive work on solutions to the current crises in the field of peace and security, but also allows for new approaches to basic research, for example through artificial intelligence, at PRIF. The designated Leibniz President Schmidt encouraged us in these initiatives and emphasized the importance of strengthening trust in science as a “driver of progress” and as part of an open society.
About the Leibniz Association
The Leibniz Association is one of the four major non-university research associations in Germany. It connects 96 research institutions dedicated to socially, economically, and ecologically relevant issues and their transfer into politics, business, and society. Its focus ranges from the natural sciences, engineering, and environmental sciences to economics, spatial sciences, social sciences, and the humanities. PRIF has been part of the association since 2009.