Professor Lucia A Reisch, Dr. oec., has been appointed to the El‑Erian Professor of Behavioural Economics and Policy. She joins from the Department of Management, Society and Communication at the Copenhagen Business School, effective 1 September 2021. A graduate of the University of Hohenheim, she holds the award of the highest Medal of the State of Baden-Württemberg, for “social and scientific engagement for sustainable development and policy”.

The  El-Erian Professor of Behavioural Economics and Policy is based in the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS), which shares a close relationship with the Faculty of Economics. Professor Reisch will be responsible for building and leading the new El-Erian Institute. Both the Professorship and the Institute were created through a generous benefaction from Dr Mohamed A El-Erian (Queens' 1977).

Professor Reisch is also the honorary Leibniz Chair at the Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology. Additionally, she is an elected Member of the German Academy of Technical Sciences and has been chairing several high-level political commissions consulting the German government. In October 2020, she received the 2020 DSEB (Danish Society for Business and Education) Research Award. The award was given to a CBS researcher whose research in 2019-20 demonstrated high quality and degree of applicability.

“I’m delighted to take up this position,” says Professor Reisch. “I appreciate the enormous contribution the Faculty of Economics makes to research, and I really hope to build on those links with the Department of Politics and International Studies, and the Faculty.”

“In recent years I have been involved as principal investigator in several large EU research projects on consumer behaviour and sustainability policy, as well as participating in German and Swedish research projects. Ideally, I would like to use this unique opportunity to focus on behavioural insights based policies for sustainable development, both in research, teaching, and practice, in cooperation with policymakers and innovative companies worldwide."

Commenting on her appointment, Professor Tim Harper, Head of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, said: "Lucia Reisch is an outstanding scholar who brings a wealth of experience to the El-Erian Professorship of Behavioural Economics and Policy. Her appointment will have a major impact on both POLIS and Economics as well as the wider Cambridge academic community. I look forward to welcoming her in September."

Adapted from a story originally published by the Faculty of Economics and POLIS