In 2013/14, Ortwin Goldbeck (then IHK President), Thomas Niehoff (then IHK Managing Director) and Prof Dr Fred G. Becker (representative of Bielefeld University) successfully endeavoured to attract donors for the "Leadership of Family Businesses" chair and the Institute for Family Businesses (iFUn). The iFUn was part of the concept that was presented to the potential donors. It was about the iFUn triangle "Unity of research, teaching and transfer". It was intended to promote cooperation between family businesses and Bielefeld University researchers in a structured way. An institution was thus created alongside the endowed chair to ensure continuous, complementary and expanded cooperation between theory and practice as well as between researchers.
In 2014, the Institute for Family Business (iFUn) - Ostwestfalen-Lippe was formally founded at the Faculty of Business Administration and Economics at Bielefeld University. The founding board consisted of Professors Fred G. Becker and Hermann Jahnke.
The cross-faculty cooperation led to the iFUn being reorganised as an interfaculty department in January 2019. Since then it has been called: Institute for Family Business (iFUn) - Ostwestfalen-Lippe at the Faculty of Business Administration and Economics and the Faculty of Law.
In January 2019, a formal Board of Directors was elected for the first time and the Management Board was set up to manage any business.
At the beginning of 2023, Dr Jana Bövers will take over the management of the iFUn and thus support the Executive Board and the Board of Directors. The aim is to further promote the exchange between science and practice and establish various new event formats.