global public policy institute

is the only private german think tank (most think tanks here are research arms of the political parties) and recently hosted a conference on a global natural gas market. it was really good for the following reasons:

-quality of speakers: they even had jonathan stern! who is, if you ask me, one of the top 2-3 people in natural gas analysis today. another would be david victor. it was really really cool to talk to him during the reception and ask him some of the questions i had about his research, my theories, etc.

-good organization: everything flowed smoothly, there was enough time to socialize without it feeling like it was too networking oriented.

-Chatham House rules: basically these rules say that you are not allowed to quote any of the speakers on what they say. this allows speakers to have much more freedom. nobody said anything really interesting or controversial, but i felt like speakers (at least one major one) was more relaxed and gave more direct answers to questions. but usually the industry executives are party liners anyway...

-good food: hey....

its also impressive how far they've come in such a short while. they were only founded in 2003 but their fellows (at least, their energy people) and connections (with the new america foundation in dc, a think tank i respect) are pretty good. i dont know them well enough to be more critical (although some of the panels were really good, others were seriously deadwood), but at least my first impression is pretty good.