Billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros has been granted the Joseph A. Schumpeter Award for his “commitment to freedom and the promotion of the pursuit of knowledge,” according to a press release.
Ewald Nowotny, governor of the National Bank of Austria and president of the Vienna Schumpeter Society, which celebrates the work of the Austrian political economist, presented the award to Soros at the bank in Vienna.
“We are honoring George Soros with the Schumpeter Prize for making the world more open, more just and more equitable for all,” he said.
Vaclav Klaus, Helmut Kohl, Mario Draghi and Romano Prodi have all won the award, which is given annually, in the past. It is presented by the Schumpeter Society and funded by the Helmut Zilk Fund for International Relations of Vienna.
Soros founded the Open Society Foundations, an organization that funds human rights and civil society groups, and co-founded Central European University, which will soon begin its first year at its new campus in Vienna, where it was forced to move after Hungarian Prime Minster Viktor Orban forced them out of Budapest.
“It is a great honor to receive this award, because I have always been a great admirer of Schumpeter’s thinking,” Soros said. “I am also personally heartened to be so warmly received in Vienna, which has become the new home of the Central European University. I trust the CEU, with its focus on the social sciences, will contribute to the great intellectual life of this city, in the tradition of Schumpeter and so many others.”
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