On October 13, 2023, the graduation and inauguration ceremony of the PhD program "Ethics and Responsible Leadership" took place at the Wittenberg Center for Global Ethics (WCGE).
The main focus of the event was to celebrate all of the graduates of the doctoral program of this year and to welcome the new PhD students of the 10th cohort.
After the official opening by Dr. Martin von Broock, Chairman of the WCGE Management Board, Dr. Lisa Schmalzried, Academic Head of the doctoral program welcomed all guests. Renate Hornung-Draus, Head of the Department of Economics and International Affairs at the Confederation of German Employers' Associations (BDA) then spoke on the topic of "Ethical dilemmas for companies in global value chains - are governments shirking their responsibilities?" A lively discussion followed.
Two new members were welcomed to the program: Dennis Hüper and Till Micke, both supervised by Prof. Dr. Philipp Schreck (Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg). They will work in the field of business ethics on the topics "The Business Case for Corporate Digital Responsibility in Managing the Twin-Transformation" and "Epistemology for organisations - on the treatment of knowledge and information in the 21st century organisation". Over the next three years, they will participate in the various courses, field projects and events of the PhD program and write their dissertations. With the admission of the 10th cohort, 11 doctoral students are currently conducting research at the program, which has been generously funded by the Karl Schlecht Foundation since 2014.
Finally, a ceremonial farewell to the graduates tock place. Oleg Fedoseev, Emma van den Terrel, Taiwo Yusuff and Shayan Ali Khan from the 7th year received their graduation documents. Graduate Christian Kroll from the 6th year joined the ceremony by video. In the future, our graduates want to continue to deal professionally with the issue of ethics in business.