Scholarly and scientific endeavors and research in general provide impetus for a society’s development and help to create and secure prosperity. At Freie Universität Berlin, new ideas that could make our lives better in the future are born every day. We support the culture of innovation on campus so that knowledge and technologies originating in research can be applied faster.

Profund Innovation supports students, scholars, scientists, and alumni in three areas:

• Protecting intellectual property and commercial exploitation thereof;
• Entrepreneurship Education;
• Starting businesses, especially those with a connection to research;
• financial planning, applying for public funding (VIP+, EXIST, ZIM etc) and looking for private investors.

However, a highly developed culture of innovation is not only an obligation toward society at large. It is also a gain for the academic environment. Cooperative business initiatives and spin-offs offer fresh stimulus for academic research and make it possible to raise external funds that benefit the university as well. A portion of the income from exploiting patents and other intellectual property rights also flows back to the university.