The Department of Management, Controlling, HealthCare's application for funding for an endowed professorship with a research focus on "Coordination mechanisms in decarbonized energy systems" has been approved by the Carl Zeiss Foundation. The funding volume amounts to over 1.4 million euros and the funding period covers five years from the appointment of the professorship.
The Ludwigshafen University of Business and Society (HWG LU) is being funded by the Carl Zeiss Foundation to establish a research professorship. The application for funding for a "Professorship for Coordination Mechanisms in Decarbonized Energy Systems" submitted under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Nikolas Wölfing from the Management, Controlling HealtCare Department was approved at the beginning of 2025. The project is being funded by the Carl Zeiss Foundation with a funding volume of over 1.4 million euros as part of the CZS Endowed Professorships HAW program.
"Our university had the opportunity to apply for an endowed professorship from the renowned Carl Zeiss Foundation for the first time in 2024. We are all the more pleased that the submitted application with a research focus on "Coordination mechanisms in decarbonized energy systems" was successful. In addition to the Carl Zeiss Foundation, our special thanks go to Prof. Dr. Nikolas Wölfing, who developed and defended the funding application," says University President Prof. Dr. Gunther Piller, who is delighted with the successful acquisition of third-party funding. According to Piller, the endowed professorship is a further milestone in further expanding the socially and economically important topic of sustainability and energy security at HWG LU.
"In future, the endowed professorship will be dedicated to the efficient coordination of energy supply and consumption in non-centrally controllable systems. Examples of applications can be found in wholesale as well as in small-scale energy markets or in grid management," says Prof. Dr. Nikolas Wölfing, outlining the new position to be created, adding: "For our university, this represents a unique opportunity to further expand and bundle our existing expertise in the fields of sustainability and energy management. Our new Bachelor's and Master's degree courses with a focus on sustainability will benefit greatly from this professorship."
The endowed professorship will be advertised shortly and is due to start in the course of 2026. Once the position has been filled, the Carl Zeiss Foundation will fund the professorship for five years.
About the endowed professorship "Coordination mechanisms in decarbonized energy systems"
The transition to a climate-neutral energy supply is one of the fundamental challenges of the 21st century. Where the use of technology can be automated and optimally controlled at an operational level, such optimization is reaching its system-wide limits. The proposed professorship for business mathematics is dedicated to efficient coordination mechanisms in energy supply across operational system boundaries. Methods of optimization, statistics, agent-based modelling or game theory are used to investigate how the interplay of technology, regulation and market structure optimally controls efficiency and value creation in the overall system.
Possible research topics focus on the multidimensionality of flexibility options, implementability and participation costs, and on effects and distortions caused by the use of artificial intelligence. Areas of application can be found in both wholesale and small-scale energy markets, in grid management or in the implementation of resource efficiency along value chains. Cooperation with selected partners in research and industry complements the research environment. The objectives are: to establish research and education on systemic resource efficiency and market design at the university, to transfer efficient mechanisms into practice and to promote young scientists by establishing a doctoral position.
About the Carl Zeiss Foundation
The Carl Zeiss Foundation has set itself the goal of creating scope for scientific breakthroughs. As a partner of excellent science, it supports basic research as well as application-oriented research and education in the STEM departments (mathematics, computer science, natural sciences and technology). Founded in 1889 by the physicist and mathematician Ernst Abbe, the Carl Zeiss Foundation is one of the oldest and largest private science-promoting foundations in Germany. It is the sole owner of Carl Zeiss AG and SCHOTT AG. Its projects are financed from the dividends distributed by the two foundation companies.
To the project presentation of the Carl Zeiss Foundation
Contact:
Ludwigshafen University of Business and Society
Department of Management, Controlling, HealthCare
Prof. Dr. Nikolas Wölfing
E-mail: nikolas.woelfing@ 8< SPAM protection, please remove >8 hwg-lu.de