Professor Uschi Backes-Gellner

Uschi Backes-Gellner finished her studies in economics (Diplom-Volkswirtin) at the University of Trier in 1984. She then completed her doctorate (Promotion) in 1987 and her post-doctoral qualification (Habilitation) in business economics in 1995, likewise at the University of Trier.

Since 2002, she has held the Chair of General Business and Personnel Economics at the Institute of Business Economics of the University of Zurich. In addition to this, she has been Director of the “Swiss Leading House on Economics of Education, Firm Behaviour and Training Policies” since 2005, a key research field of the Universities of Bern and Zurich subsidised by the Federal Office of Vocational Education and Technology (BBT), and, since 2008, Vice Dean of the teaching section “Economics”. In 2020, the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen awarded her an honorary doctorate in economics.

Professor Backes-Gellner was nominated a Research Fellow of IAB in 2005. From 2009 to 2018 she was also a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the IAB.

Her main areas of research include business economics, personnel and educational economics, industrial relations and innovation economics.

Uschi Backes-Gellner has published the results of her research in various well-known journals, such as: the Industrial and Labor Relations Review, the British Journal of Industrial Relations, Human Resource Management, Labour, Kylkos, Organization Studies, the Applied Economics Quarterly and Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training.