About

Our activities

The Institute’s activities focus on strategy-oriented analysis through its publications and events. The CELIS Institute has a track record of attracting the best and brightest practitioners and scholars to its activities, who have held or gone on to prominent positions in government, the private sector or academia. As a result, the Institute benefits from a strong network of supporters in all corners of the policymaking, legal practice, investor and academic communities.

• CELIS Events. The CELIS flagship event is the CELIS Forum on Investment Screening (CFIS), which serves to enhance the Institute’s analytical capacity, facilitate the shaping of common approaches and best practices, as well as to foster a trusted community of economic security experts. A marketplace of ideas, CELIS events bring together EU officials, national experts, diplomats, private practitioners, inhouse lawyers, academics, business leaders, thinktankers, and representatives of civil society and the media from across Europe and beyond. Other high-profile, low-key events include special symposia, seminars, or expert workshops, as well as training in investment compliance and risk control. Participation in CELIS events is by invitation only.

• CELIS Research. The CELIS Institute welcomespublications and regularly publishes contributions by other scholars and practitioners interested in the intersection of security and investments, whether from a legal, economic, or policy perspective.

• CELIS Tools. The CELIS Knowledge Hub hosted on the CELIS Institute website celis.institute is the most comprehensive and up to date online tool available for foreign investment screening. Through its network of Country Reporters, the Institute provides full coverage of EU and global screening regimes, including legislation, guidance, court judgments, summaries, academic articles, policy briefs, and is updated up to several times a day. It provides blog posts and news updates in this rapidly developing area, a target search tool, an FDI screening map, and other resources including podcasts.

• CELIS Network. A key part of the Institute’s mission is to inform and prepare the investment policy experts and policymakers of today and tomorrow. For this purpose, the Institute every year welcomes an international cohort of fellows from a wide range of backgrounds, disciplines, and career stages to exchange ideas with one another and with the broader CELIS community of staff, fellows, affiliates, interns, and alumni. 

Our funding

The Institute is financially independent and receives no general core funding from any government or private source, apart from the individual-bench fees of CELIS Fellows and contributions of CELIS Patrons. Research projects and events are open to funding by a wide variety of bodies including research councils, trusts and foundations, law firms, national governments, the European Commission and Parliament, and non-governmental organisations.

As a research, community, policy, and training platform committed to the highest standards of organizational, intellectual, and personal integrity, the CELIS Institute maintains strict intellectual independence and sole editorial direction and control over its ideas, projects, publications, events, and other research activities. The Institute does not take institutional positions on policy issues and the content of its publications reflects the views of their authors alone. In keeping with its mission and values, the Institute does not engage in lobbying activity and complies fully with all applicable lobbying laws. The Institute will not engage in any representational activities or advocacy on behalf of any entities or interests and, to the extent that the Institute accepts funding, its activities will be limited to bona fide scholastic, academic, and research-related activities, consistent with applicable law.

The CELIS Institute enjoys the status of charitable enterprise. It can also (co-)finance itself through donations and issue so-called donation receipts. 

The difference between donation and sponsorship is as follows: A donation is free of any consideration and supports a charitable purpose in full. All other support of the Institute's work where some sort of consideration by the sponsor is required - such as the display of a company logo at the CELIS Institute's website - qualifies as sponsorship. Instead of a donation receipt, an invoice is issued for sponsoring and any taxes that may be due are shown on it.

Sponsoring is particularly interesting for companies because they can deduct the sponsored amount as operating costs for tax purposes.

For individuals, the tax authorities recognise donations as so-called special expenses, so that income tax is reduced.

Equal opportunities

The CELIS Institute is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive research environment, without discrimination based on race, colour, religion, gender, gender identity, or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, or age. The CELIS Institute is proud to be an equal opportunity employer.

The Institute's history and status

The CELIS Institute was set up in 2020 as a permanent successor to the International Conference on a Common European Law on Investment Screening (CELIS) in 2019. A multi-stakeholder initiative, principally funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, CELIS resulted in the very first, interdisciplinary grounded, comprehensive appraisal of EU foreign investment control, published in the inaugural volume of the Yearbook of Socio-Economic Constitutions in 2021 (Springer).

Following a German tradition that scientific institutes do not have a special legal form, but are carried by the individual scientists, the CELIS Institute also did not have a special legal form. In order to meet the requirements in the growing activities and cooperation with the Institute's European and international partners, since 2023 the Institute operates as a charitable entrepreneurial enterprise with limited liability under German law (gemeinnützige Unternehmergesellschaft (gUG (haftungsbeschränkt)).

Accordingly, the statutes of the enterprise state: "The Enterprise shall exclusively and directly pursue charitable purposes within the meaning of the section 'Tax-privileged purposes' of the German Tax Code. The purpose of the enterprise is to promote science and research as well as the promotion of adult and professional education in the field of the regulation of cross-border economic processes and their political, social, and economic foundations, including the settlement of disputes in this respect, as well as the facilitation of foreign trade and the raising of funds for the realisation of these tax-privileged purposes."

The non-profit character excludes a distribution of profits to the shareholders. According to law, all profits must be used to fulfil the charitable purpose set out in the statutes of the enterprise. Only projects that are in line with the non-profit purpose may be supported. Entrepreneurial activity must serve the fulfilment of the charitable purpose, not the maximisation of profit. Interest-bearing investments are not permitted.

In terms of transparency, the statutes of the enterprise are notarised and entered into in the Commercial Registry Berlin, No HRB 255289 B. Furthermore, CELIS Institute is required by law to keep double-entry accounts and to prepare annual financial statements consisting of a balance sheet, a profit and loss account and annex.

The CELIS Institute is headquartered in Berlin. 

If you would like to get involved in the Institute's work, please do not hesitate to get in touch.