Founded: September 21, 1969
Founding members: The departments for co-operative research at the Universities of Berlin (Free University), Erlangen-Nuremberg, Giessen, Hamburg, Cologne, Marburg, Munster, and Vienna.
Founding Board of Directors: Prof. Eberhard Dülfer (Marburg) as chair, as well as Prof. Walter Hamm (Marburg) and Prof. Erik Boettcher (Munster).
The AGI linked the German co-operative studies departments which were established at universities starting in the beginning of the 20th century.
The establishment of these institutions was started by the Agricultural University of Berlin (1910). Halle (Saale) (1911), Cologne (1926), Hamburg (1927), and Frankfurt (1930) followed. After the Second World War, increasing interest in co-operative research led to the founding of further co-operative studies departments in Marburg (1947), Munster (1947), Erlangen (1949), and Vienna (1952). In the 60s, Giessen (1961), Marburg II (1963), and Berlin (Free University, 1964) followed, while the 70s saw departments in Hohenheim (1971) and Fribourg in Switzerland (1976), and the 80s the establishment of the institute at the WU-Vienna (1989). The establishments in Berlin (Humboldt University, 1990), the re-establishment at Halle (1998), and the reorganisation in Vienna (Vienna University of Economics and Business, 2005) have formed today’s group of departments.