Focal areas

Education and science – Basis for the future

Well-founded knowledge has a high priority for Munich Re as a financial services provider. After all, our knowledge of risk is the cornerstone of our business. Our social commitment is therefore centred on the areas of education and science.

To solve current problems and be ready to tackle those of the future, Munich Re supports education and training of children throughout the world and we sponsor university research and courses both in Germany and abroad. We see this as an investment in our future.

School and university education

As a member of the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft (Association for the Promotion of German Science and Humanities), Munich Re helps promote Germany as a scientific location. ERGO is particularly keen to promote the training and education of young people through its involvement in a number of support projects, for example as chief sponsor of the 2010 schools competition "Schule macht Zukunft" (School shapes the future), which is designed to strengthen dialogue between schools and business.

Many talented young people lack the means to make the most of their potential. This is also an area in which Munich Re is keen to offer effective long-term support. For this reason, in cooperation with the Dr. Kurt Hamann Foundation, the ERGO Insurance Group supports diploma candidates at the University of Mannheim. ERGO also helps talented students as part of the North Rhine-Westphalia Scholarship Programme, most of whom are studying insurance science, health economics, actuarial science and media information technology. ERGO Latvia's sponsorship programmes offer orphans the chance of a university education, and in Italy Munich Re supports the most talented graduates from Milan's Bocconi University by financing a part of their postgraduate studies in insurance and risk management.

Science and research

Munich Re has been supporting the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich since 1922 through its involvement in the Münchener Universitätsgesellschaft (Munich University Society), which promotes university research and teaching. The Society's offices and staff are provided by Munich Re and this organisation is able to fund a large number of academic projects, interdisciplinary visiting scholarships and lecture series, national and international academic congresses and ongoing cooperation with other universities. In addition, the Society presents annual awards and sponsorship prizes for the Ludwig Maximilian University’s new academic talent. At the same time, the members of Munich Re’s Board of Management have also made personal commitments to further improving the knowledge interface. For example, Dr. Wolfgang Strassl is a member of the Board of Trustees of the European School of Management and Technology in Berlin, and Dr. Ludger Arnoldussen is on the Advisory Council of "Dialogue on Sustainability", an initiative of the Catholic University of Eichstätt/Ingolstadt.

Munich Re also devotes significant resources to selected scientific topics. For example, in order to promote awareness of mathematical issues and to get people more interested in this science, Munich Re has facilitated the internet portals of the German (since 2001) and European Mathematical Societies (since 2009). The core content of the European portal is now defined by 16 project coordinators from across Europe and is updated on an ongoing basis. This international perspective on mathematics greatly benefits all those interested or involved in the subject. Another project was a Chair in Insurance at the University of Waterloo, which our subsidiary Munich Re of Canada helped to establish.

Sponsoring gifted students

Some talented young people lack the means to make the most of their potential. For this reason, in cooperation with the Dr. Kurt Hamann Foundation, the ERGO Insurance Group supports diploma candidates at the University of Mannheim. ERGO also supports talented students as part of the NRW Scholarship Programme, most of whom are studying insurance science, health economics, actuarial science and media information technology.

Social dialogue

Using our expertise as a foundation, we take an active role in society’s dialogue in order to develop appropriate solution strategies for handling risks. We are therefore involved in dynamic global collaborations with a wide variety of interest groups and NGOs and with experts from the world of politics, public administration, and science. Numerous memberships and cooperation partnerships with university associations and academic societies to promote insurance sciences facilitate a direct exchange with up-and-coming specialists, who in turn benefit from our experience. A particular focus of our commitment is on climate protection: for some 35 years, Munich Re’s experts have been analysing and documenting global climate change and sharing their knowledge with numerous national and international organisations, institutions and associations.

In October 2008, Munich Re began working together with the renowned London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). We are supporting a five-year project launched by the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy (CCCEP) with the purpose of analysing the opportunities and risks that climate change brings for the insurance industry at the interface of climate research and economics. The analyses focus particularly on the quantification of the impacts on the insurance industry, the expansion of low-carbon and renewable technologies for power generation, and the opportunities and effects of emissions trading systems.

In cooperation with the Tunisian National Advisory Council for Scientific Research and Technology, the DESERTEC Foundation has set up a platform for scientific cooperation on the desert-power project in order to support the key aspect of training local specialists. Besides the non-profit DESERTEC Foundation, the other members are 18 universities and research institutes from the Middle East and North Africa. It is planned to expand the network to a global platform in order to promote the implementation of the DESERTEC desert-power concept in other regions of the world.