LEIBNIZ-INSTITUT FUR FINANZMARKTFORSCHUNG SAFE EV

Their core work

SAFE (Sustainable Architecture for Finance in Europe) is a Frankfurt-based economics and financial markets research institute affiliated with Goethe University. Their researchers study financial regulation, monetary policy, capital markets, and — increasingly — sustainable finance and ESG disclosure standards. In their EU project work, they contribute an economist's expertise to policy problems: measuring what distorts green investment, proposing evidence-based rating methodologies, and analysing how financial instruments can channel private capital toward energy efficiency. They bring quantitative rigor and regulatory knowledge that pure engineering or environmental science groups cannot replicate.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Their H2020 participation began with the broad SSHOC infrastructure project (2019), where they contributed as a social science institution to building shared European research data infrastructure — a role about research community membership rather than their core domain. By 2021, their focus had sharpened decisively toward their institutional heartland: sustainable finance, ESG rating standards, and the financial mechanisms that fund energy efficiency. The shift from open science community participation to technical authority on green finance disclosure reflects a deliberate move to apply their financial economics expertise where EU policy demand is highest.

SAFE is positioning itself as a technical and regulatory authority on ESG disclosure methodology and green finance design — an area of rapidly growing EU policy demand as the taxonomy, SFDR, and energy efficiency directive all require exactly the kind of standardized rating frameworks they studied in TranspArEEnS.

How they like to work

SAFE has participated as a partner in both H2020 projects and has never served as coordinator, which is consistent with a specialist institute contributing deep domain expertise rather than managing project logistics. Their two projects brought them into contact with 52 unique partners across 18 countries, meaning they operate within large, multi-stakeholder consortia — not small focused teams. This profile suggests they are a credible, low-friction partner who adds regulatory and financial economics weight to consortia led by others.

Despite only two projects, SAFE has reached 52 unique partners across 18 countries, reflecting participation in large pan-European consortia rather than narrow bilateral collaborations. Their network spans academic institutions, research infrastructures, and policy-adjacent bodies across the EU.

What sets them apart

SAFE occupies a rare intersection: rigorous financial economics research applied directly to energy and climate policy, at an institute physically located in Frankfurt — the seat of the ECB and BaFin — giving them direct proximity to the regulators who will implement the very standards their research addresses. Most sustainable finance consortia include engineers or environmental scientists; SAFE brings the capital markets perspective that explains why green investment actually happens or stalls. For any consortium working on ESG disclosure, green finance instruments, or energy efficiency investment barriers, they add regulatory credibility that technical partners cannot provide.

Highlights from their portfolio

• TranspArEEnS
  Directly addresses one of the EU's most pressing regulatory gaps — how energy efficiency performance should be standardized, rated, and disclosed in ESG frameworks — placing SAFE at the centre of sustainable finance policy design.
• SSHOC
  Participation in this major ESFRI infrastructure project connected SAFE to the European Open Science Cloud and the broader SSH research community, establishing their open data credentials.