EMLT Bulletin 14 (April) - EN

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APRIL, 2016

14

IN MA EV KE N ER C EC “IT O E CO BU YD MP SS MA O M T AY RO AR Y B UR P W P RO E O MI Y T E CO M C LI SE O T NS IS AN IC S CI E W NO S, EN IT T CE H ”

“IT MAY BE NECESSARY TO MAKE COMPROMISES IN EVERYDAY POLITICS, BUT WE CANNOT COMPROMISE WITH OUR CONSCIENCE” - Ludwig Erhard (1954)

Patron of the Ludwig Erhard Symposium, or: How the “inventor” of the social market economy of the 1950s helps students to understand economy in the 2000s.

In addition to our last bulletin, featuring the FAU’S School of Business and Economics Career Center and its programmes, this bulletin wants to take a closer look at a special programme run at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU), which focuses on the guideline “Learning business by doing business”: The Ludwig-Erhard Symposium.

Who was Ludwig Erhard?

Ludwig Wilhelm Erhard (4 February 1897 – 5 May 1977) was a German economist and statesman who, as economics minister (1949–63), was the chief architect of West Germany’s post-World War II economic recovery. He also served as German chancellor from 1963 to 1966.

Ludwig Erhard is often famed for leading German postwar economic reforms and economic recovery (“Wirtschaftswunder,” German for “economic miracle”) in his role as Minister of Economics under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer from 1949 to 1963. During that period, he promoted the concept of the social market economy (soziale Marktwirtschaft). Germany’s economic policy in the 21st century is still based on this concept. In addition to the keynote of free-market capitalism, his system included special provisions for housing, farming, and social programmes.

What is the Ludwig-Erhard-Symposium (LES)?

The LES is an economic conference, which takes place every autumn in Nuremberg’s convention Center. Based on the idea of Ludwig Erhard, which is combining the idea of a free economic market with the state’s responsibility to social security of its inhabitants will lead to economic growth on a more sustainable basis, the conference features a

broad variety of speakers, lecturers, workshops and discussion boards. The aim of this two-day conference is to function as a networking platform where renowned speakers, manager, entrepreneurs, students and researchers can come together to exchange ideas and to engage into multigenerational discussions.

How does the LES work? Why is it so special?

The LES started in 2014 as a student project. In 2016, the LES is already widely recognized for his well-known participants, speakers and workshop instructors.

An organization team exclusively staffed with university students runs the conference, which makes it quite unique.

Students at FAU’s School of Business and Economics in their undergraduate or graduate studies can apply for a job in the organising team by the end of each winter term. The work with the organisational team starts right at the beginning of the summer term and continues until the conference is finished. The positions and jobs students are assigned to depend on their personal interests, their previous work experience, their study major and, if they are LES-seniors, their former position in the LES organisational team.

LES-seniors can coach and be sponsors for new applicants, students with previous work experience can share their knowledge and skills with unexperienced team members and together students manage this huge project, the planning, operating and the follow-up work.

Each member of the student organisational team can earn credits for his/ her contribution to the LES. Therefore, students record their work in the LES team and hand in a final term paper after their work with the LES is finished.

Looking back – and forward!

“This year’s symposium was even more successful than the first symposium in 2014. This proves that our students are able to transfer theoretical knowledge into practice und use it – that makes me very proud”, says Professor Dr. Matthias Wrede, dean of the school of business and economics at FAU and president of the LES in 2015.

“We faced some big challenges, though”, adds Yvonne Dohmstreich, student manager at the LES and co-manager for the conference lecture management. One of the challenges was the last minute cancellation of one of the keynote speakers who had to be replaced; another one was an airline strike, which made it impossible for Google country director Lars Lehne to travel to Nuremberg on time. The LES management team arranged for an ad hoc videoconference, and Lars Lehne and his co-presenter Professor Dieter Kempf, chairman of Datev eG in Nuremberg, were able to take up their discussion on the digital revolution with their audience in no time.

“At first, we were all shocked by the obstacles we had to face all of a sudden”, Yvonne Domstreich continues. “But looking back and reflecting on it we have to admit that those situations, when we had to react very quickly and be very productive, were the most helpful for us students.”

The 2015 LES was a great success after all. More than 1,250 participants attended the conference’s several workshops and discussions. More than 60 speakers gave speeches and engaged into discussions with their audience on the topics finance/tax, human resources, entrepreneurship, mobility and innovation, energy, industry 4.0, digitalisation und management.

Among the speakers were several well-known persons like Dr. Markus Söder, Bavaria’s State Minister of Finances, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, former Secretary of State and Vice-Chancellor of Germany, Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Bert Rürup, President of the Handelsblatt Research Institute, Pater Dr. Anselm Grün, Benedictine Father and Dr. Michael Groß, Olympic champion and management consultant and many more.

Reflecting on Ludwig Erhard’s idea of a “social market economy” from different point of views and between different generations was another focus of 2015’s LES. “The heterogeneous blending of visitors at the LES with 43 percent students and/or young professionals and 57 percent professionals and senior professionals resulted in a lively exchange of ideas between today’s and tomorrow’s executives”, as a commentator puts it.

On December 1 and 2, 2016, the LES takes a third go-around. Stay tuned for more news!

You can watch some videos on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC49vuYU283RrW1ogvLjk4g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-TGtwXUPl4

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