Dr. rer. pol. Christian Lerch

Coordinator of Business Unit Industrial Change and New Business Models

Dr. Christian Lerch, studied Economics Engineering at the University of Karlsruhe (today: Karlsruhe Institute of Technology KIT) with a focus on “Systems and Innovation Dynamics“, “Economic Models“, “Entrepreneurship, Business Management and Organization“ as well as on “Logistics“. In 2014 he finished his PhD at the Freie Universität Berlin at the Professorship of Innovation Management analyzing service innovations in Manufacturing Industries, their dynamics and their interactions with product innovations.

Since April 2008 Christian has been a researcher and project manager at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI located in Karlsruhe. First he worked at the Competence Center Industrial and Service Innovations, where he took over the Business Unit Industrial Services. There he worked on projects focusing on industrial innovations, innovations in service industries as well as on managerial and industrial change. Later he was active for the Competence Center Sustainability and Infrastructure Systems, adding the topics of innovative services for infrastructure systems and sustainability innovations for manufacturing and service industries to his research profile. From December 2015 till June 2019 Christian worked for the Competence Center Policy – Industry – Innovation, where he coordinated the Business Unit Industrial Innovation Strategies. Since July 2019 he is in the Competence Center Innovation and Knowledge Economy and coordinates the Business Unit Industrial Change and New Business Models. There he focuses on innovation activities and competitive strategies of firms and their economical effects for deriving innovation policies.