The corporate identity institute promotes research, theoretical analysis and acts as an international research forum. It concerns itself with the development and perception of corporate identities. The role of the institute is to reflect critically on past developments and to anticipate future potential developments. CONTEXT Even though "Corporate Identity" has been known about for decades, so far there are very few CI-based research institutes. Seen from this standpoint, it can be described as being a young field of theory and research. Academic work to date has been mainly limited to that done by individuals and as a rule, has only dealt with individual aspects of corporate identity such as corporate communications or nation branding. There has been no holistic view, but this is very relevant for classification and evaluation. STRUCTURE The corporate identity institute is headed up by Professor Robert Paulmann and cooperates closely with the Design Faculty at the Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences. Based on this structure, the institute constitutes on the one hand an extension of the educational side while at the same time providing a working and communication platform for external experts and interested parties.