Dr. Nikolas Wölfing, Professor in the Department of Management, Controlling, and Health Care, has been appointed to the Carl Zeiss Endowed Chair, effective September 1, 2026. The research professorship, which focuses on sustainable energy management and energy market design, will be funded for at least five years by the Carl Zeiss Foundation with over 1.4 million euros and provides the freedom to conduct research in the field of energy economics.
The Ludwigshafen University of Business and Society (HWG LU) is receiving funding from the Carl Zeiss Foundation (CZS) to establish a research professorship. The application submitted by the Department of Management, Controlling, and HealthCare for funding a “Professorship for Coordination Mechanisms in Decarbonized Energy Systems” was approved in early 2025 and has now been successfully filled by Prof. Dr. Nikolas Wölfing. The endowed professorship includes funding of over 1.4 million euros over a period of at least five years and is supported as part of the CZS Endowed Professorships HAW program.
“This was the first time our university had the opportunity to apply for an endowed professorship from the renowned Carl Zeiss Foundation. We are all the more pleased that the submitted proposal, ‘Coordination Mechanisms in Decarbonized Energy Systems,’ was successful and has now been filled so perfectly by Prof. Dr. Nikolas Wölfing, a renowned expert in this field and a valued colleague,” said University President Prof. Dr. Gunther Piller, expressing his delight at the successful acquisition of third-party funding and the appointment. The endowed professorship represents another milestone in further expanding the socially and economically vital topics of sustainability and energy security at HWG LU. The degree programs in Sustainability Management would also benefit significantly from the new professorship, according to Piller.
“The transition to a climate-neutral energy supply is one of the fundamental challenges of the 21st century. While the use of technology can be automated and optimally controlled at the operational level, such optimization reaches its limits when applied system-wide. The endowed professorship is dedicated to efficient coordination mechanisms in energy supply that extend beyond operational system boundaries. In short: The focus is on coordinating energy supply and consumption in systems that cannot be centrally controlled,” Wölfing explains his research interests. This requires a better understanding of both the incentive effects of existing markets and regulations and the effects arising from new technologies, such as automated trading based on artificial intelligence. “The overarching goal of this endowed professorship is to firmly establish research and education on systemic resource efficiency and market design at the university and, in collaboration with corporate partners, to facilitate the transfer of this knowledge into practice,” explains Wölfing. In the future, Nikolas Wölfing will be further supported by a doctoral position associated with the professorship. “The entire Department is very grateful that we now have these opportunities thanks to the funding from the Carl Zeiss Foundation,” Wölfing continues.
About the Professor: Prof. Dr. Nikolas Wölfing
Nikolas Wölfing studied economics at the University of Potsdam, followed by mathematical modeling and quantitative economics at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and the Paris School of Economics. He gained extensive experience in energy economics research and consulting at the Center for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim. Research stays took him to Fudan University in Shanghai and to Paris. In 2013, he earned his Ph.D. on interaction in overlapping markets in the wholesale electricity sector at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and the Paris School of Economics. As a postdoctoral fellow, Nikolas Wölfing worked at both the ZEW and the Chair of Economics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, followed by a research fellowship at Stanford University in California, USA. From 2019 to 2022, he was an assistant professor at the Institute for Sustainable Energy Studies at the University of Mannheim before being appointed in February 2022 as a professor of economics and now to the CZS Research Professorship at the Ludwigshafen University of Business and Society. In Ludwigshafen, as program director, he oversees the bachelor’s program in “Business Administration with a Focus on Sustainability Management” (B.Sc.) and the master’s program in “Sustainability Management” (M.Sc.), both of which he helped establish. His research focuses on, among other things, the economic analysis of energy markets, climate policy instruments, as well as competition and regulation. Wölfing also conducts research as a scholar at the Mannheim Institute for Sustainable Energy Studies.
About the Carl Zeiss Foundation
The Carl Zeiss Foundation promotes research and education in the STEM disciplines of mathematics, computer science, natural sciences, and technology. As a partner in scientific excellence, it provides the freedom necessary for both basic and applied research. The foundation was established in Jena in 1889 by Ernst Abbe and is today one of the largest private foundations supporting science in Germany. It is the sole owner of Carl Zeiss AG and SCHOTT AG. Its funding activities are financed by dividend distributions from the two foundation-owned companies.
Subject Matter Expert:
Ludwigshafen University of Business and Society
Department of Management, Controlling, and Healthcare
Prof. Dr. Nikolas Wölfing
Chair of Coordination Mechanisms in Decarbonized Energy Systems
Tel. 0621/5203-209 | Email: nikolas.woelfing@ 8< SPAM protection, please remove >8 hwg-lu.de
