Christoph Schaltegger and René Scheu receive the Bonny Award

The founders of Lucerne's Institute for Economic Policy (IWP) were awarded the Bonny Foundation's Freedom Prize 2025 on Thursday in Berne. The Foundation praised the contribution of these two «intellectual entrepreneurs» to debate and knowledge.

The award ceremony for the Bonny Foundation's Prize for Freedom 2025 took place on Thursday evening in front of over 700 guests from the worlds of politics, business and culture, as part of the Impulsapéro organized by the law firm Kellerhals Carrard at Berne's Kursaal. This year's prize, worth 100,000 Swiss francs, was awarded to the founders of the Institute for Swiss Economic Policy (IWP) at the University of Lucerne, Christoph Schaltegger and René Scheu.

Foundation vice-president Beat Brechbühl hailed them in his speech as «two men who act by thinking - and think by acting». For Christoph Schaltegger and René Scheu, evidence comes before statements,« he added. The IWP is not a think tank with a PR mission, but a laboratory for factual research.»

Institute for Swiss Economic Policy

Born in 2021, the’Institut für Schweizer Wirtschaftspolitik (IWP) aims to facilitate opinion-forming on major economic policy issues in Switzerland, such as inequality, by providing solid, understandable facts. Attached to the University of Lucerne and financed by private funds, the IWP sets itself apart from the academic world by sometimes launching poster campaigns in railway stations. Its monthly newsletter «Five facts on economic policy» is an example of clarity and contribution to debate and knowledge.

Among the research that caused a stir in Parliament, the media and the general public, the institute demonstrated that income inequality was generally stable in Switzerland over the past hundred years, or that federal government employees earned on average 12% more than if they worked in the private sector in an equivalent position.

The IWP is headed by economics professor Christoph Schaltegger, former personal advisor to PLR Federal Councillor Hans-Rudolf Merz, and the institute's General Secretary is philosopher and publicist René Scheu, former head of the cultural section of the Swiss daily NZZ.

You've just read an unpublished open-access article. Debates, analyses, cultural news: subscribe to support us and access all our content.