The Institute for Socio-Economics stands for a socio-economic approach to economic phenomena. Economic issues are pursued from an interdisciplinary and pluralistic perspective at the intersection between economics and other social sciences.

Pluralism with regard to theoretical approaches uses the wealth of different traditions of economic thought to apply the appropriate models and methodological approaches to socially relevant issues in different social, political and historical contexts. Thus, the socio-economic approach offers a modern response to the pressing economic questions of our time, raised by major economic events and global trends such as the global financial crisis and the euro crisis, growing (socio-)economic inequality, and recent political challenges of liberal democracy under the conditions of an increasingly globalized economy.