For the period 2011–2017 he received an ERC Starting Grant for the project 'Boom and Bust Cycles in Asset Prices: Real Implications and Monetary Policy Options' which ERC supports with more than 750.000 Euros. In April 2012 Klaus Adam received the inaugural Junior Prize for Monetary and Financial Economics from Banque de France and Tolouse School of Economics. In 2016 he received the Carl Menger Prize of the German Economic Association.

From 02/2011–07/2013 Klaus Adam was Dean of Graduate Studies of the Graduate School of Social and Economic Sciences (GESS) and Academic Director of the Center for Doctoral Studies in Economics (CDSE) at Mannheim University. He was the main proposal writer for the GESS application within the German Excellence Initative competition. The successful proposal was awarded over 8m Euros for the period 2012–2017 by the German Science Foundation and the Wissenschafts­rat.

Prior to joining Mannheim University he was Principal Economist at the Monetary Policy Research Division of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt. Klaus Adam studied economics at University of Freiburg, University of Wisconsin (Madison), and at Bonn University. He obtained his Ph.D. from the European University Institute in Florence and held assistant professor­ships at the University of Salerno and Goethe University in Frankfurt.