Auch die Follow-up-Studie der Universität Münster und der Beratungsagentur Intraprenör zur 4-Tage-Woche sorgt für viel Aufmerksamkeit - und zeigt spannende Ergebnisse. So berichten die weiterführenden Organisationen mehrheitlich von einer gestiegenen Arbeitgeberattraktivität (74 Prozent), einer stärkeren Mitarbeiterbindung (56 Prozent) und einer höheren Zahl an Bewerbungen (53 Prozent), wie Studienleiterin Prof. Dr. Julia Backmann vom Lehrstuhl für Transformation der Arbeitswelt u.a. in Berlin vorstellte.

As was the case two years ago, we achieved an excellent 4th place among universities in the latest manager magazin ranking. The ranking is published every two years and is based on assessments by numerous auditing firms as well as their clients. We are therefore all the more pleased to once again be among the leading institutions, outperforming many renowned universities as well as all universities of applied sciences.

Erneut ein starkes Ergebnis für die Universität Münster im Ranking der besten Lehrstühle für das Fach Wirtschaftsprüfung: Wie bereits vor zwei Jahren erreichen wir im aktuellen Wettbewerb des manager magazins einen hervorragenden 4. Platz unter den Universitäten. Die Rangliste wird alle zwei Jahre veröffentlicht und basiert auf den Bewertungen zahlreicher Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaften sowie ihrer Mandanten. Umso mehr freut uns, dass wir uns erneut unter den führenden Standorten positionieren und dabei viele renommierte Universitäten sowie alle Fachhochschulen hinter uns lassen konnten.

The Journal of Marketing Research paper “Driving Mobile App User Engagement through Gamification” by Jun.-Prof. Jens Paschmann and his co-authors Hernán A. Bruno (University of Cologne), Harald J. van Heerde (UNSW Sydney), Franziska Völckner (University of Cologne), and Kristina Klein (University of Bremen) has been awarded the VHB Best Paper Award of the Marketing Section at the 2026 VHB conference in Göttingen.

In the article “A little help for others” in the latest edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, author Patrick Bernau explores the concept of “nudges” as a gentle form of reward within the framework of liberal paternalism. His argument is that many of the well-intentioned ideas in this context fail. As evidence, he cites, among other things, a study published in 2026 by PD Dr Jörg Lingens (Institute for Sustainable Market Design), Christoph Feldhaus, Andreas Löschel and Gerald Zunker.

Der im Journal of Marketing Research erschienene Beitrag „Driving Mobile App User Engagement through Gamification" von Jun.-Prof. Jens Paschmann vom Marketing Center Münster und seinen Co-Autor:innen Hernán A. Bruno (Universität zu Köln), Harald J. van Heerde (UNSW Sydney), Franziska Völckner (Universität zu Köln) und Kristina Klein (Universität Bremen) wurde auf der VHB-Jahrestagung 2026 in Göttingen mit dem VHB Best Paper Award der Wissenschaftlichen Kommission Marketing ausgezeichnet. 

Im Artikel "Ein bisschen Hilfe für die anderen" in der aktuellen Frankfurter Allgemeinen Sonntagszeitung widmet sich Autor Patrick Bernau dem Thema "Nudges" als sanftes Belohnungskonzept des liberalen Paternalismus. Seine These: Viele der gut gemeinten Ideen in diesem Rahmen scheitern. Als Beleg beruft er sich u.a. auf eine Studie, die 2026 von PD Dr. Jörg Lingens (Institut für Nachhaltiges Marktdesign), Christoph Feldhaus, Andreas Löschel und Gerald Zunker veröffentlicht wurde.

What can past refugee crises teach us about resilience through entrepreneurship – particularly in light of potential new displacement risks? On March 4, 2026, the project team of RES²CUE – Building resources and resilience through the crisis for Ukrainian entrepreneurs met at the University of Münster. RES²CUE is a joint research project of the University of Bremen and the University of Münster, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

Was können wir aus vergangenen Fluchtkrisen über Resilienz durch Entrepreneurship lernen – insbesondere mit Blick auf mögliche neue Fluchtbewegungen? Am 04. März 2026 fand an der Universität Münster das Projekttreffen von RES²CUE – Aufbau von Ressourcen und Resilienz in der Krise für ukrainische Unternehmer:innen – statt. RES²CUE ist ein gemeinsames Forschungsprojekt der Universität Bremen und der Universität Münster, gefördert durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

Firms can defend themselves against new competition not only through innovation or price cuts, but also through their cost structure. This is shown by a new study by Prof. Dr. Martin Artz, Head of the Institute of Management Accounting and Control, together with Martin Holzhacker (Michigan State University) and André Hoppe (KU Leuven), published in The Accounting Review, one of the world's leading academic journals in accounting.

Unternehmen können sich gegen neue Konkurrenz nicht nur mit Innovationen oder Preissenkungen behaupten, sondern auch über ihre Kostenstruktur. Das zeigt eine neue Studie von Prof. Dr. Martin Artz, Leiter des Instituts für Controlling und Unternehmenssteuerung, gemeinsam mit Martin Holzhacker (Michigan State University) und André Hoppe (KU Leuven), die jetzt in „The Accounting Review“, einer der weltweit führenden Fachzeitschriften im Bereich Accounting, veröffentlicht worden ist.

The University of Münster has published its 2025 annual portrait series “Twelve Months, Twelve People”. With this publication, the Communications and Public Relations Office highlights the diversity of the university and presents several outstanding personalities from the past year. Among them is Prof. Jan vom Brocke, Director of the Department of Information Systems, Chair of Information Systems and Business Process Management, and Director of the European Research Center for Information Systems (ERCIS).

Die Universität Münster hat ihr Jahresporträt „Zwölf Monate, Zwölf Menschen“ für 2025 veröffentlicht. Mit der Publikation bildet die Stabsstelle Kommunikation und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit die Vielfalt an der Universität ab und stellt einige herausragende Persönlichkeiten des vergangenen Jahres vor. Zu ihnen gehört Prof. Jan vom Brocke, Direktor des Instituts für Wirtschaftsinformatik, Leiter des Lehrstuhls für Wirtschaftsinformatik und Geschäftsprozessmanagement sowie Direktor des European Research Center for Information Systems (ERCIS).

The University of Münster has published its 2025 annual portrait series “Twelve Months, Twelve People”. With this publication, the Communications and Public Relations Office highlights the diversity of the university and presents several outstanding personalities from the past year.

Among them is Prof. Jan vom Brocke, Director of the Department of Information Systems, Chair of Information Systems and Business Process Management, and Director of the European Research Center for Information Systems (ERCIS). He is internationally active in the field of Information Systems and currently serves as President of the Association for Information Systems (AIS). In the annual portrait, he reflects on his journey from being a student in Münster to becoming an internationally connected researcher. He also discusses his research on business processes, artificial intelligence, and the responsible use of these technologies. The full portrait offers insights into his work and motivation.

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Portrait of Jan vom Brocke “Information systems: making the world a better place”

Read the other articles from the brochure “Twelve Months, Twelve People” here

Download the full brochure

In February, the DFG research unit “Future Digital Towns” at the Department of Information Systems welcomed its Mercator Fellow, Prof. Dorothea Kleine.

Dorothea Kleine is Professor of Human Geography at the University of Sheffield (UK), Director of the Institute for Global Sustainable Development (IGSD), and head of the research group “Digital Technologies, Data and Innovation”. Her research focuses on sustainable human development, global justice, and the role of digital technologies in advancing these goals.

Within the research unit, she contributes her expertise on the Capability Approach, which serves as a central theoretical framework for the group. In doing so, she provides important impulses for shaping digital measures in socially inclusive and public-interest-oriented ways.

Over the course of the year, Prof. Kleine will visit three times for one month each, working closely with the research unit on current and future topics.

Funded by the German Research Council (DFG), the research unit "Future Digital Towns" investigates how medium-sized towns can address the challenges of digitalization. Its aim is to develop digital tools that strengthen their liveability.

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Prof. Dorothea Kleine

Future Digital Towns

Professor Sebastian Hohenberg was presented with the American Marketing Association (AMA) Varadarajan Award for Early Career Contributions to Marketing Strategy Research 2025 at the AMA Winter Conference in Madrid. He is only the second professor from a German university to receive this honour. The Varadarajan Award is one of the most prestigious awards in the field of marketing strategy and honours academics whose work has made an exceptional contribution to research and practice.

Professor Sebastian Hohenberg ist bei der AMA Winter Conference in Madrid der "Varadarajan Award for Early Career Contributions to Marketing Strategy Research 2025" der American Marketing Association (AMA) verliehen worden. Er ist erst der zweite Professor einer deutschen Universität, der diese Ehrung erhält. Der Varadarajan Award zählt zu den renommiertesten Auszeichnungen im Bereich Marketingstrategie und ehrt Wissenschaftler:innen, deren Arbeit einen außergewöhnlichen Beitrag zu Forschung und Praxis geleistet hat.

Im Wirtschaftsdienst ist der Artikel „Europäische Flotten-CO₂-Standards: Auswirkungen auf Verbraucher und Hersteller“ von Markus Dertwinkel-Kalt und Christian Wey erschienen. Der Beitrag analysiert die industrieökonomischen und klimapolitischen Wirkungen der europäischen Flottenregulierung im Automobilsektor und macht deutlich: Die jüngsten Lockerungen der Regulierung haben deutschen Herstellern zwar milliardenschwere Strafzahlungen erspart, untergraben jedoch die Glaubwürdigkeit und Planungssicherheit der Klimapolitik.

How do forests grow in different regions of the world? With ECHOSAT, this question can now be systematically answered on a global scale and over multiple years.

While previous tree height maps only represented individual years, ECHOSAT (Estimating Canopy Height Over Space and Time) tracks forest growth, disturbances, and regrowth over multiple years, providing important data for CO₂ monitoring and climate protection efforts.

Jan Pauls, Dr. Karsten Schrödter, Sven Ligensa, and Prof. Fabian Gieseke from the Chair of Machine Learning and Data Engineering at the Department of Information Systems develop ECHOSAT together with international partners: Martin Schwartz and Philippe Ciais (Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement (LSCE), France), Berkant Turan and Max Zimmer (Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB)), Sassan Saatchi (Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology, USA), and Sebastian Pokutta (Technical University of Berlin).

The research team combines multi-sensor satellite data with a specialized vision transformer model. A self-supervised growth regularization ensures that the estimated tree heights follow biologically plausible growth curves, including gradual increases as well as abrupt declines due to fire or deforestation.

For example, in Les Landes (France), ECHOSAT clearly reveals the cycles of logging and regrowth, while large parts of the Amazon rainforest remain stable over the observed period. Both patterns are detected automatically, without additional post-processing.

ECHOSAT is part of the AI4Forest project, a German-French research cooperation. Recognizing the critical importance of forest ecosystems for climate and biodiversity, the initiative investigates how state-of-the-art artificial intelligence methods can be used to better understand, monitor, and respond to climate-driven environmental changes.

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Access the full paper here.

The maps are publicly available here.

More information about the AI4Forest project can be found here.

In Part 24 of the Alumni Stories, we introduce Gerd Hartwig. After studying Business Administration at the University of Münster, he began his career as an HR Officer and later as Head of Management Development at Oetker’s central administration in Bielefeld. He subsequently held positions as HR Director at Deutsche Postbank AG, member of the Executive Board of the Federal Pension Service for Post and Telecommunications, and, from 2004, as General Representative/CHRO at CLAAS, where he played a key role in shaping global HR and organizational development until his retirement in 2018. Even after retirement, Gerd Hartwig continues to serve as an advisor to CLAAS and is active on supervisory boards, employers’ associations, the Chamber of Industry and Commerce, and the Advisory Board of the School of Business & Economics.