Renate Hartwig is a researcher at the Economic Policy Lab "Climate Change, Development and Migration" at RWI and professor of empirical development economics at the Ruhr University Bochum.
Her research interests are in the areas of family economics, political economy, demography and global health. Methodologically, Renate works with both randomized and non-randomized reserach designs, and very often in interdisciplinary teams. Much of her work is based on primary data collected primarily in West, Central and East Africa and Indonesia. The results of her work have been published in leading field journals including the Journal of Development Economics, Economic Development & Cultural Change and World Development, among others.

Renate Hartwig is member of the Steering Committee of the Leibniz Research Alliance INFECTIONS in an Urbanizing World - Humans, Animals, Environments and Member of the Technical Advisory Forum of the International Centre for Antimicorbial Resistance Solutions (ICARS).