The Kelso Institute Europe
The Kelso Institute Europe (KIE) was founded in February 2020 by Prof. Lowitzsch and is financed by the Kelso Institute for the Study of Economic Systems in San Francisco and third-party funded projects. The KIE is designated to become home to the continu-ation of Louis O. Kelso’s and Patricia Hetter Kelso’s mission. Its geographic position between the West and the East is a huge asset for becoming a global centre for new ideas and contributing significantly to the further deepening of the European Union and sustainable development worldwide.
This undertaking is to be sustained in close cooperation with the Kelso Professorship of Comparative Law, East European Business Law and European Legal Policy, which Dr Lowitzsch in 2022 is now conducting in its twelfth academic year at European University Viadrina. A second complementary resource is the Inter-University Centre (see below) founded in 2000 by Prof. Herwig Roggemann and directed by Prof. Lowitzsch.
The Mission
How in a technologically advanced society are average people to earn a living? For more than two decades, the Kelso Institute has provided a forum in San Francisco to seek an answer to this question. Today, with automation and robotisation gaining pace and in the light of the climate crisis we are confronted with ever more pressing challenges in-extricably linked with this query. Pivotal in this context are the energy and digital twin transitions, the trajectory to a climate-neutral circular society but also the future of de-mocracy in the age of the internet.
In this light, it is the endeavour of the KIE to facilitate both a sustainable Energy Transition including consumer co-ownership in renewables, and to further broaden employee fi-nancial participation. The work program, therefore, embraces questions of ownership and privatisation, insolvency and restructuring, digitisation and information / communi-cation technologies (ICT), and financial crises and their impact on the Welfare State.
Patricia and Louis Kelso Fellowships
The Patricia and Louis Kelso Fellowships are awarded to outstanding scholars studying topics related to the above-mentioned challenges. Research Fellows are global schol-ars invited to become part of the Institute’s ongoing research because of their scholar-ship and experience. Ph.D. candidates, postdoctoral scholars, or visiting professors in the areas of law, philosophy, renewables / engineering, economics, history, political sci-ence, psychology, public policy, or sociology may apply.