3.2.10.5. Excellence Initiative
In mid 2005 the German federal states agreed to launch an initiative to promote top level research with a special funding program distributing 1,9 billion Euros amongst a selected elite of research universities. Universities have to compete on the three lines of funding (overall university strategy, research clusters, and graduate schools) and the winners will receive extra funding over a period of 5 years.

This initiative has awakened a new hope at the FU (read: “finally there is a light at the end of the tunnel”), while on the other hand it has put the university’s leadership under pressure. Stakeholders perceive the Excellence Initiative as a last chance: “when we win we finally have the chance to become an elite university, or we will slowly but surely perish” (FU administration 26). Whatever the outcome, at the time of the interviews, most representatives of the administration were quite enthusiastic about the opportunities and hence entrepreneurial and strategizing about the possibilities.

At the first round of the initiative, the FU was made a winner of extra funding for one Graduate School of North American Studies and shares one Graduate School in Mathematics with the two other Berlin universities. Nevertheless, the initiative is perceived as beneficial to the whole university by the President (FU web)

3.2.10.6. Prof. Faltin
Prof. Faltin is professor for entrepreneurship in the department of educational science and psychology for more than two decades He has developed a unique approach to venture creation, which focuses on the development and refinement of an innovative business model. In a truly entrepreneurial fashion, he has created two innovative and successful enterprises and one foundation, continuously pursuing his personal passion - the practical and theoretic exploration of the entrepreneurship paradigm. Prof. Faltin has developed his approach in several publications (Faltin, 1998, , 1999, , 2001) and is facilitating a business model creation in his regular lectures, the Entrepreneurship Laboratory. Since 2006 he also collaborates with the FU entrepreneurship team in the provision of an incubation office space for new ventures in the Faltin Villa.

Prof. Faltin’s approach is specifically relevant for this research because, even though it focuses on economic entrepreneurship (enterprise creation), its methodology is based on the intellectual practice of refining an idea/opportunity to the point where it is the blueprint of a viable and sustainable venture. As such, it can be applied to all entrepreneurial projects no matter what the lead ambition is. In essence innovative entrepreneurship is about unlashing the potential of the individual to follow his/her personal interest, and to develop a unique idea to the point that it can realistically implemented. Hence Prof. Faltin’s facilitation practices and institutions are briefly reviewed in the following paragraphs.

In his regular lectures, he first aims at enabling the students to see the creative and non-economic/business aspect of entrepreneurship, and then subsequently introduces them to the methodologies on how to design a blueprint for a venture.

The Entrepreneurship Laboratory (EL) are evening workshop-sessions comprised of two components: On the one hand, Prof. Faltin interviews thematically relevant guests, who report about their work and how it can be useful for entrepreneurship and business model design; on the other hand, the ELs are meant to give nascent entrepreneurs a platform to present, discuss and refine their business models with Prof. Faltin and his community of practice [i]. The ELs takes place in the premises of one of Prof. Faltin’s companies and usually have a duration of about three to four hours with possibilities for networking during a middle break and again after the event. Since 2006 the sessions have been streamed live onto the internet and most interviews are available as edited and annotated video on demand through Prof. Faltin’s web portal www.entrepreneurship.de

During the field work of this research another institution with the mandate to foster entrepreneurship at the FU has been created – the Faltin Villa. In close collaboration the FU’s entrepreneurship team [ii] and Prof. Faltin have setup a new venture incubation space in one of Dahlem’s typical residential mansions. The house provides space for about eight offices and two larger multifunctional meeting- or “living-rooms.” Nascent entrepreneurs can use the offices and ICT infrastructure free of cost once their business design has been approved by Prof. Faltin.

In conclusion, Prof. Faltin has dedicated his professional life to the promotion of entrepreneurship and has influenced hundreds of FU students to live out their entrepreneurial potential.

3.2.10.7. FU Entrepreneurship Fomentation Team
The FU has chosen to institutionalize the promotion of an entrepreneurial spirit in its faculty and students in the department (IV. team A) in charge of the facilitation of the exploitation of intellectual property and business creation (from hereon the entrepreneurship team). This unit existed for many years as a one-staff institution, but has recently taken off since the end of 2005 when substantial funding was acquired from a structural EU fund. Today about 13 people are working on several initiatives meant to foster (primarily but not exclusively) economic entrepreneurship at the FU. The team has developed and implemented very practice oriented (action learning) courses, and most of them can be classified as knowledge entrepreneurship from the perspective of the FU entrepreneurship team [iii]. One of them is run by Prof. Faltin and has students develop an innovative business model. Another has students design and run a mini-business on campus for several weeks. Additionally the team has created a web-portal offering learning and networking opportunities related to entrepreneurship. Last but not least several experts have been hired, who function as scouts scanning the FU’s research efforts for opportunities for economic exploitability. These scouts do follow an economic entrepreneurship ambition, but they generate the funds that enable the institutional knowledge creation and transfusion mandate. Agreeing with Clark’s (1998) observations, the employment of these specialists makes sense as they perform a non-academic support function and allow the academics to focus on knowledge entrepreneurship.

Allow me also to recount a case of innovative political entrepreneurship facilitated by the FU entrepreneurship team. The case of the creation of the communication channel www.direktzurkanzlerin.de is another instance that verifies the practical overlap of the various entrepreneurial ambitions and its paramount theme of creative destruction. “Direkt zur Kanzlerin” (Direct to the Chancellor) is a website that was setup to allow citizens to have a direct dialogue with Germany’s highest political institution, whereby individuals post their questions in a forum. Every day, the website users vote on the relevance of the questions and the chancellor’s office issues a reply to the three questions that where voted most relevant. This innovative political communication channel has been developed by a small group of student entrepreneurs, who now make use of the publicity and reputation they have built up through their political entrepreneurship to pursue several other entrepreneurial projects. In tune with their humanistic understanding of business practices the founding team has managed to gather a cadre of co-entrepreneurs around them who collaborate (for the moment) without financial remuneration, solely motivated by their ambition to realize themselves in a creative and striving environment. Thereby the founders have managed to create a very effective and ‘family-like’ team (FU students 21).

The founding core team of this ‘entrepreneurial clan’ has been attracted and supported by the FU’s entrepreneurship team , proving that it is attentive to opportunities to realize opportunities.

Overall the FU provides medium conditions for economic entrepreneurial development. According to a ranking that is conducted by Schmude and Uebelacker (2005) the FU reaches the 27th place amongst German universities (2003: 20th).

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[i] Over the years a community of people has emerged around Prof. Faltin’s approach, and the participants of the EL are mostly out of this group. The attendants are comprised of many local ‘regulars’ (around 50%), selective semi-regulars (who come when the agenda and date suits them, around 30%), and guests, who either don’t live in Berlin or who come out of curiosity. All either have a professional or personal interest in entrepreneurship and in Prof. Faltin’s approach in particular.

[ii] Which institutionally manages and provides the space.

[iii] As they have never been implemented at the FU, barely elsewhere.

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