The Free International University (FIU), was a support organization founded by the German artist Joseph Beuys together with Klaus Staeck (1st chairman), Georg Meistermann (2nd chairman) and Willi Bongard (secretary). It was founded as a "organizational place of research, work, and communication" to ponder the future of society.[1] As a free University it was intended to supplement the state educational system while at the same time campaigning for legal equality with that system.[2]
The FIU was founded on 27 April 1973 in the Düsseldorf studio of Joseph Beuys and existed as a non-profit, recognized, and registered association up to its dissolution in 1988, more than two years after the death of the artist.[3]
The idea of the Free International University was revisited and taken further by various people and groups, including the author Rainer Rappmann under the FIU-Verlag and the F.I.U.s in Amsterdam, Gelsenkirchen, Hamburg, and Munich, which were begun by students of Beuys. They also include the organization Mehr Demokratie e.V.[4] and the Omnibus for direct Democracy.