Expertise Centre of Finance
The Frankfurt financial centre stands for excellent and, at the same time, practice-oriented research and teachings in the field of economics and finance. This is impressively demonstrated by the research and training institutions located here and their close networking with banks, insurance companies and other financial service providers.
Thus, in 2008, the various specialist disciplines at the Goethe University Frankfurt, from teachings in business economics and political economics along with jurisprudence, were united under one umbrella in the House of Finance, with an emphasis in finance. The goal was to develop a European expertise centre for financial research. Since then, a total of some 150 academics have researched and taught there. In addition to the finance specialist fields and research institutes of the university - such as the Center for Financial Studies (CFS), the Institute for Law and Finance (IFL), the E-Finance Lab (EFL) and the Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability (IMFS) - the Goethe Business School (GBS) is also housed here.
With the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management (formerly University for Banking Economics), another top institute - as documented by numerous university rankings - has its headquarters in the Frankfurt am Main financial metropolis. The private university has one of the most well-known addresses for the training of future executive personnel in the banking industry. Currently, more than 50 professors, assistant lecturers and language lecturers serve approximately 800 students in state-recognised and FIBAA-accredited study programmes.
In addition, there are various private universities of international rank with a decided specialisation in finance, such as, for example, the WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management. The WHU is one of the few German universities with international accreditation. Currently, 23 professors research and teach here, with the emphases of corporate finance, empirical capital markets research, alternative investments and private banking.
An additional serious step in the development of the European expertise centre is the founding of the Frankfurt Institute for Risk Management and Regulation (FIRM). Located at both universities in Frankfurt, it will begin its research and teaching operations as of the summer semester of 2010. In research and teaching, the institute represents the aspiration to be at a top international level, in order to advance the research of risks in banking and impart new quality on the training and continuing education of risk managers, particularly for the banking industry.
Additional universities of the region (such as the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, with its Chair for Political Economics) and private universities of international reputation (such as the European Business School) supplement the excellent research and education level. Thus, the Frankfurt financial centre already belongs to the leading European expertise centres for finance. The participating institutions are working hard to further develop this top position in the future.