Bettina Rockenbach elected as new President of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina

26/09/2024 Leopoldina

Professor Dr Bettina Rockenbach will be the new President of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. The Senate of the Academy elected the economist today by secret ballot. Bettina Rockenbach will enter office on 1 March 2025 as successor to Professor (ETHZ) Dr Gerald Haug. The palaeoclimatologist Gerald Haug has led the Academy since 2020 and is leaving after one term in office. Bettina Rockenbach will be the XXVIII President of the Leopoldina and the first woman to lead the Academy. Bettina Rockenbach is Professor for Experimental and Behavioral Economics at the University of Cologne/Germany and Senior Research Fellow at the Max Plank Institute for Research on Collective Goods in Bonn/Germany. The formal transfer of office will take place in Halle (Saale)/Germany on Friday 21 February.

“Bettina Rockenbach is an excellent representative of her field. As a long-standing Vice Rector of Research and Innovation at the University of Cologne and as a Member of the DFG Senate, she has gathered a huge amount of experience in scientific management. She has excellent contacts in both the German and international scientific community,” said current President of the Leopoldina Professor (ETHZ) Dr Gerald Haug after the election. “By nominating Bettina Rockenbach to the Senate for election, the Selection Committee has put forward a scientist who is renowned for her holistic thinking, balanced argumentation, and participative leadership style,” he added.

After her election, Bettina Rockenbach said: “I thank the Senate of the Leopoldina for the trust they have shown in me with this choice, and I look forward to following in the successful footsteps of my predecessors while also making my own mark as the Academy President. I would like to continue on from the excellent work of Gerald Haug and create even more public awareness of the Leopoldina. As the National Academy of Sciences, the Leopoldina is one of the first ports of call for policymakers and society when it comes to independent scientific discussion in Germany. My aim is for scientific discussions on the challenges facing society and the options for action to increasingly inform the communication process with policymakers and society. Given the global nature of the urgent questions of the future it is important to me that cooperation with both national and international partners be strengthened. I am looking forward to increasing cooperation with junior scientists during my time in office.” Bettina Rockenbach became a Member of the Leopoldina in the Section Economics and Empirical Social Sciences in 2013 and has been the Deputy Senator of this section since 2019.

Bettina Rockenbach is a German economist. Her research focuses on the design of mechanisms to promote cooperation in social dilemma situations and on conditions for socially responsible economic action. To overcome the pressing conflicts of humanity, such as resource distribution, climate protection or global health, cooperation between actors is essential. The divergence of individual and collective interests – the social dilemma – poses an enormous challenge for cooperation. Bettina Rockenbach uses methods from game theory and behavioral economics to investigate the prerequisites for successful cooperation. In her work she contributes both to basic research and to the application of scientific findings to current problems. Bettina Rockenbach and her partly interdisciplinary team have been able to, among other things, demonstrate the importance and interaction of trust, reciprocity, reputation, and social sanctions for stable cooperation. They have contributed to a better understanding of the market conditions for moral and socially responsible action and have successfully developed and implemented mechanisms for a more sustainable use of natural resources.

Bettina Rockenbach studied mathematics, economics, and computer science at the University of Bonn and obtained her Diploma in Mathematics in 1988. In 1993 she received her PhD in Economics for a paper supervised by Professor Dr Reinhard Selten (Nobel Prize Winner in Economic Sciences in 1994 and Member of the Leopoldina). In 1999 she received her habilitation in economics at the University of Bonn. From 2000 to 2011 Bettina Rockenbach was Professor of Microeconomics with a focus on industrial economy at the University of Erfurt/Germany. In 2011 she was appointed to the University of Cologne, where she researches and teaches as Professor of Experimental and Behavioral Economics. She has been the Director of the Reinhard Selten Institute at the Universities of Bonn and Cologne since 2018. She has been researching as a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods in Bonn since 2019. Her scientific work has been acknowledged with awards such as the Hendrik-Casimir-Karl-Ziegler-Award of the North Rhine-Westphalia Academy of Sciences and Arts and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In addition to her scientific expertise Bettina Rockenbach enters office with comprehensive experience in scientific management due to her involvement in various scientific committees and university management. She was Vice Rector of Research and Innovation at the University of Cologne for eight years. Before that, Bettina Rockenbach was Dean of the Faculty of Economics, Law and Social Sciences at the University of Erfurt from 2006 to 2008, and from 2008 to 2011 Vice President for Research and Early Career Researchers. From 2014 to 2017 she was a member of the DFG Senate (German Research Foundation), and a member of the ERC Advanced Grant Peer Review Panel (SH1) since 2020.

More information about Bettina Rockenbach in her Member Profile on the Leopoldina Website: https://www.leopoldina.org/en/members/list-of-members/list-of-members/member/Member/show/bettina-rockenbach/
To the portrait photo of Bettina Rockenbach: https://i13.mnm.is/anhang.aspx?ID=0ae367f60046606957

About the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
As the German National Academy of Sciences, the Leopoldina provides independent science-based policy advice on matters relevant to society. To this end, the Academy develops interdisciplinary statements based on scientific findings. In these publications, options for action are outlined; making decisions, however, is the responsibility of democratically legitimized politicians. The experts who prepare the statements work in a voluntary and unbiased manner. The Leopoldina represents the German scientific community in the international academy dialogue. This includes advising the annual summits of Heads of State and Government of the G7 and G20 countries. With around 1,700 members from more than 30 countries, the Leopoldina combines expertise from almost all research areas. Founded in 1652, it was appointed the National Academy of Sciences of Germany in 2008. The Leopoldina is committed to the common good.

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26/09/2024 Leopoldina

Regions: Europe, Germany, Netherlands

Keywords: Science, People in science, Science Policy

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