Contact:
Barbara Pruitt, 816-932-1288; bpruitt@kauffman.org, Kauffman Foundation
International Kauffman-Max Planck Institute Summit Speakers Outline the Research University’s Role in Nurturing Entrepreneurship to Meet 21st-Century Challenges
(KANSAS CITY, Mo.), Nov. 17, 2008 – The world's boldest universities have a unique opportunity to set the course for the future of global entrepreneurship, according to panelists at the 2008 Kauffman-Max Planck Institute Summit, held June 8-11, 2008, in Bavaria, Germany.
More than a dozen speakers from Europe, the United States, and Israel, representing some of the finest institutions and freshest thinking on the planet, convened to explore in depth the ways research universities can foster entrepreneurship in the societies around them. The result is an unprecedented volume of essays and discussion synopses, The Future of the Research University: Meeting the Global Challenges of the 21st Century, which provides ideas and practical examples for the entrepreneurial research university, including:
- Universities' role—and the transformation they have to make—in moving Europe from a managed economy to an entrepreneurial economy;
- Innovative entrepreneurial models at Arizona State University and George Mason University that are fostering economic development by encouraging bottom-up innovation and partnerships with foreign institutions for teaching and research;
- Methodologies for universities to drive entrepreneurship in the broader economy by generating ideas, training entrepreneurs and working in the business community;
- Recommendations for accelerating the commercialization—on a global, national or local scale—of new knowledge discovered by university researchers;
- How technological evolution is likely to radically transform higher education; and
- A hopeful vision of how universities could take a leading role in a revolutionary new approach to finding a cancer cure.
"The contributing authors—university presidents, renowned researchers, and individuals steeped in the mission of what a university should be—brought exceptional insight and foresight to the panel,” said Carl J. Schramm, president and chief executive officer of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the event's sponsor. "It was our distinct privilege to offer a forum for these innovative thinkers that made it possible for them to freely consider how today's research universities are changing and should be changing to become more entrepreneurial."
The book of essays is available online at www.kauffman.org.
About the Max Planck Institute of Economics
The Max Planck Institute of Economics conducts research on a broad set of problems relating to change in modern economies, including experimental economics and entrepreneurial studies. Located in Jena, Germany, the Institute is part of the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, Germany’s largest research organization. The Max Planck Society employs some 4,200 researchers in some 80 Institutes in both the sciences and the humanities. Information about the Max Planck Institute of Economics is available at www.mpiew-jena.mpg.de.
