Some 220 higher education institutions had submitted their concepts for consideration in the BMWi’s EXIST Business Start-Up Grant scheme, with 142 applications approved. The Central German University Alliance’s International Startup Campus was one of the successful concepts. The project aims to develop an international start-up academy, attract aspiring young entrepreneurs from abroad and help German start-ups to enter the Asian market. The alliance project is scheduled to run for four years, starting in April 2020.
The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy honoured the project in the International überzeugen funding line, which centres around the internationalisation of business start-ups. The Central German University Alliance’s application is the only one approved in this area. Professor Wolfgang Paul, Vice-Rector for Research at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, attended the award event together with other representatives of the Central German University Alliance.
Leipzig University will coordinate the collaborative project. Project head Professor Utz Dornberger was delighted about the award. He is looking forward to stepping up the cooperation between the three universities’ transfer and business start-up structures: “With our many years of experience in supporting business start-ups, our strong international partners and our firm footing in the Central German economic region, the EXIST Business Start-Up Grant will enable us to substantially expand the internationalisation of start-up support and anchor it across all three universities in the long term.”