Biography
Professor Mario Ragwitz is Executive Director of the Fraunhofer Institution for Energy Infrastructures and Geothermal Systems (IEG) since December 2019. Before that, he was Deputy Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI in Karlsruhe. Between January 2012 and January 2019, Professor Ragwitz was Deputy head of the Competence Center Energy Policy and Energy Markets at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI. From January 2008 to December 2018 he was Head of the Renewable Energies Business Unit in the Competence Center Energy Policy and Energy Markets at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI. As scientific director of the Fraunhofer Cluster of Excellence “Integrated Energy Systems” he coordinates the joint research of eight Fraunhofer Institutes in the field of energy system transformation, since 2019. He was also appointed as speaker of the Fraunhofer Hydrogen Network in April 2020, which coordinates the work of 29 institutes in this field.
He holds a Doctorate degree in theoretical physics and his current scientific work focuses on energy policy analysis and modelling energy systems, it extends to include problems of innovation research, financing of renewable energies, the derivation of R&D strategies and strategies for the market integration of renewable energy technologies. His duties include in particular the derivation of EU objectives and policy strategies for renewable energies and the development and evaluation of EU guidelines for renewable energies and the German Renewable Energy Act. He has coordinated more than 50 research projects on renewable energy policy development at global, EU and national levels and authored 60 peer reviewed scientific articles. He worked as a researcher at the Max Planck-Institute for Physics of Complex Systems and as a visiting researcher at the University of Texas in Austin, and at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Professor Ragwitz acts as an expert to the German Bundestag and to the European Parliament and advises among others national governments, the European Commission, the World Bank and the IEA. Since 2014, Professor Ragwitz hold a position as an honorary professor at the Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg. Since 2017, he has been a part-time professor at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute in Florence.
