A further key recipient of the DZ BANK Foundation's support is the area of cooperative studies: over half of the sponsorship volume over the last two decades has been invested in this area. An example is the International Conference on Cooperative Studies. The objective of this conference, which takes place every four years, is to highlight the cooperative opportunities for companies in a dynamic international market.

The preservation and widespread promotion of the cooperative principle, both in Germany and abroad, is the objective of numerous initiatives supported by the DZ BANK Foundation and DZ BANK. In addition to the publications from the sponsored research projects, these initiatives include, in particular, multilingual cooperative glossaries and the sole German-language journal covering the entire cooperative movement.