The Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance has launched a new visiting fellows programme for outstanding young researchers. It bears the name of Hugh Ault, professor emeritus at Boston College Law School, long-standing Special Advisor to the OECD and one of the world’s leading researchers in the fields of international and comparative tax law.

The Hugh Ault Fellowship honours up-and-coming young academics who research and teach tax law at a foreign university. The fellows are invited to spend a week at the Institute, to exchange views with the Institute’s academics and international guests and present their current research topics.

“We have already welcomed four outstanding scholars from internationally renowned universities, namely Stanford University in California, King’s College in London, the Sorbonne in Paris and the University of Toronto during the current academic year. The Hugh Ault Fellows immerse themselves in the academic life of the Institute, enrich it with their expertise, and benefit from the academic strength and internationality of our Institute,” says Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Wolfgang Schön, Director at the MPI for Tax Law and Public Finance and head of the Department of Business and Tax Law.

With the Fellowship Programme, the Institute honours Hugh Ault, a luminary in the field of international and comparative tax law. As a principal author of the most important and widely read textbook on comparative tax law and author of numerous publications on U.S. and international tax law, he is held in high esteem among experts. In addition to his professorship at Boston College, Hugh Ault has taught as a visiting professor at a number of foreign universities in Europe, Asia and Australia. In 1994 he was awarded an honorary juris doctor degree from Stockholm University and in 2004 he received an honorary doctor of law degree from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium.

In addition to his academic achievements, Hugh Ault served for 20 years as a Senior Advisor to the OECD’s Centre on Tax Policy and Administration. In recent years, he has also worked as a Consultant to the United Nations Financing for Development Office (FfDO), involved in work on enhancing the tax systems of developing countries.

As a member of the scientific advisory board of the Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance, Hugh Ault has for many years strengthened tax research in the Max Planck Society and made a significant contribution to establishing this Institute as a leading research institution in the international scientific community.

In the coming academic year, the Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance is pleased to welcome four young, highly ranked tax academics to the Institute. The Hugh Ault Fellowship 2020 honours Giulio Allevato, Professor at the IE University of Madrid, Jeremy Bearer-Friend, Professor at the George Washington University Law School, Dominic de Cogan, Lecturer at Christ’s College, University of Cambridge, and Sunita Jogarajan, Associate Professor at Melbourne Law School.

December 2019