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Italiano"Universities meet friends". Under this congenial motto, the tradition-steeped German Circle of Friends of the Universities in Innsbruck e.V. (DFK), together with the University of Innsbruck (LFUI), the Medical University of Innsbruck (MUI) and MCI, has for many years organised friendship meetings in Germany and Austria with high-ranking personalities with a connection to Innsbruck as a university location.
On the occasion of its 100th anniversary, the Joseph Schumpeter Forum was held for the first time at the annual meeting in Innsbruck. It was organised in partnership with the renowned economic research institute EcoAustria and hosted by director Monika Köppl-Turyna in an equally competent and witty manner.
Numerous students, alumni, representatives of the Innsbruck universities and guests from business & society accepted the invitation to this top-class symposium.
Professor Lars Feld, Chair at the Albrecht Ludwigs University in Freiburg and Director of the Walter Eucken Institute there, showed in his impressive lecture how Europe can be brought forward again with productivity and innovation. Ultimately, innovation spending is too heavily concentrated on large companies. Obstacles to innovation for SMEs must be reduced in a targeted manner, and the full-cash mentality on the European continent - especially in Germany and Austria - must be dismantled.
Politicians must also acknowledge for once that, in the sense of Schumpeter's insight of "creative destruction", economic life and entrepreneurship can only flourish if new things are allowed to emerge. This also means that what is no longer successful cannot be kept alive forever by subsidies. The same applies not only to companies, but also to employees in professions or sectors who are urgently needed elsewhere and cannot be kept in existing fields forever.
Bruno Frey, the most quoted economist in the German-speaking world, is Visiting Professor at the University of Basel and Research Director of CREMA - Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts in Zurich. He raises the provocative question of whether Schumpeter would get along with today's universities. Is it still possible to think unorthodoxly there, or are the structures, conventions, regulations and cultural attitudes there now too rigid? The fact that unconventional lecturers on important topics are now being disinvited or that such discussions are being dispensed with altogether because someone might object or feel hurt in their personal feelings is a worrying development and shows how justified the question of the remaining freedom at universities and schools has become. Against this background, it is necessary to question rigid leadership and organisational structures on a recurring basis and to promote new institutions, business models and ways of thinking.
In extremely lively panel discussions, competently moderated by Andreas Schnauder, Editor-in-Chief of the renowned "Pragmaticus", Rahim Taghizadegan, Director of the Scholarium in Vienna, Monika Köppl-Turyna, Director of EcoAustria in Vienna, Christoph Neumayer, Secretary General of the Federation of Austrian Industry, as well as Lars Feld on "State and Market - quo vadis?" to the insight that the Schumpeterian dictum of "creative destruction" is more relevant than ever, politics and business need leaders, courage to innovate is the decisive factor for future prosperity and a systematic anchoring of the insights of "Austrian Economics" in studies and curricula should be promoted.
In the second panel, Veit Dengler, successful publishing managerand Senior Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in Oxford, Anna Schneider, Chief Reporter of the Berlin-based daily newspaper Welt, Katja Hutter, Professor for Innovation & Entrepreneurship at the University of Innsbruck, and Florian Tursky, Austrian State Secretary for Digitalisation, will address the topic of "Innovation and Entrepreneurship in State, Economy andSociety". Innovation, according to the common insight, is not only a question of political framework conditions and leadership elites in business and society, but in particular also a question of family and school education. Courage to try out something new, willingness to take risks and tolerance of mistakes are central building blocks; the immediate sanctioning or eternal nagging of possible risks or mistakes has to give way to a new culture and attitude.
After exciting insights, food for thought and space for innovative discussions, the symposium will end with a cosy finale with refreshments. All participants and organisers are certain that the Joseph Schumpeter Symposium was not only extremely successful, but also so important that it should be continued on a regular basis.
DFK Chairman Andreas Altmann feels that the mission of the German Circle of Friends has been fulfilled: to bring together the University of Innsbruck, the Medical University of Innsbruck and MCI | The Entrepreneurial University® with renowned personalities, companies and institutions from science, business and society, to promote neighbourly dialogue and encounters as well as scientific excellence and outstanding academic achievements.
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The DFK is an association of distinguished personalities from business, science, society and politics. The objective of the DFK is the idealistic and material support of the universities in Innsbruck including the MCI and their students, the promotion of the partnership cooperation of these universities, the networking of their graduates with the economy and the cultivation of the friendly relations of its members.