Pfau sponsorship award from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia
PFAU - Förderpreis was a sponsorship award from the Ministry for Science and Research in North Rhine-Westphalia , which was awarded by this Ministry between 1996 and 2007 as a prize for university graduates with particularly promising start-up ideas and concepts for self-employment .
PFAU stands for "Program for the financial security of company founders from universities".
The goals of the project, according to the former Minister Hannelore Kraft , were to increase the self-employment rate in North Rhine-Westphalia and to transfer current research knowledge to the local economy.