The INSIGHTS project at the Berlin School of Economics aims to support and promote the communication of research and to contribute to its transfer to the public. The WZB and the DIW have obtained project funding from the Leibniz Gemeinschaft for this purpose. INSIGHTS includes all Berlin School of Economics institutions and the DIW.

The communication of academic research in economics is of vital importance to stimulate public debates and inform political decisions. However, successful communication and research-based policy advice is difficult: the advice needs to be timely and it needs to be supported by solid research findings. The communication needs to be clear and concise, while uncertainty and caveats need to be identified and explained. These high standards of communication are the basis for INSIGHTS.

Today, transfer and policy communication is mainly in the hands of a few generalists who are popular experts, very experienced in communication, and therefore highly in demand by the media. We aim to encourage and support specialists who are working at the research frontier of relevant topics to communicate their research results to the public and to policymakers.

INSIGHTS has two main pillars, a platform of exchange between researchers, policymakers, the media, and the public, and the provision of professional guidance and formal training on how to interact with the public and communicate academic methods and results for junior researchers.

In practice this means:

• Workshops: INSIGHTS conducts transfer activities through self-organized conferences and topical workshops with a policy focus. 
• Conference Presentations: INSIGHTS supports conference presentations with a policy focus by PhD students and junior faculty to strengthen transfer activities for policy-relevant research.
• INSIGHTS Pieces: A platform to disseminate policy briefs created by Berlin School of Economics researchers. Between April and July 2020 Insights pieces created a special section with articles on the Corona Crisis. A compilation of INSIGHTS pieces from 2023 can be downloaded here.
• Skills: Media training and coaching, support and advice on academic and non-academic writing for junior researchers.
• Internships: INSIGHTS provides financial support for internships PhDs and post-docs to visit newspapers, radio stations and professional communication.
• Policy Fellowships: INSIGHTS provides fellowships for policymakers to foster close collaboration between academics and policymakers. The target group consists of civil servants from ministries and other public institutions and members of policy-oriented NGOs. The fellowships finance research stays of up to three months at one of the Berlin School of Economics institutions.
• Research Projects: INSIGHTS supports (or funds) co-creation and joint research projects as cooperations between researchers and policymakers.
• INSIGHTS Events: As part of INSIGHTS mission to foster the dialogue between research and society, we host events like roundtables, discussions and talks. Our seminar series INSIGHTS Roundtable creates a forum for the discussion of current political issues between science, politics, administration and society.