Entrepreneurship in Science and Technology

Neil Aaron Thompson

Course

URL study guide

https://studiegids.vu.nl/en/courses/2024-2025/E_ENT_EST

Course Objective

After the successful completion of this course, the student will:
• Be familiar with an innovation outlook on entrepreneurship.
• Be aware that value-adding opportunities not only contain financial aspects but also social and ecological aspects (sustainable entrepreneurship).
• Have developed insight into, and actual developed, one’s own enterprising competences.
• Have learned about the processes involved in the recognition and exploitation of opportunities, about creating societal value and about the nature and role of networks.
• Have gained the ability to write a feasibility plan on how to bring an innovation to the market.
• Have gained knowledge of different entrepreneurial processes and the importance of valorization of scientific findings and business ideas for a knowledge-based economy. This course is taught at the UvA. Please visit: https://studiegids.uva.nl

Course Content

Entrepreneurship, here defined as ‘the creation, discovery and exploitation of value-adding opportunities’, is an increasingly important subject for students and professionals. Not only in the disciplines of business administration and economics, but also in other disciplines, like science. The growing complexity and accelerating dynamics of the involved technologies, emphatically urge professionals to think, act, and communicate in an entrepreneurial way. This course responds to this urge and offers students from the UvA & VU JD MSc in Physics and Astronomy, the UvA & VU JD MSc in Chemistry, the VU MSc Science, Business and Innovation, the VU MSc Biomedical Physics and Technology at VU the possibility to develop themselves in an entrepreneurial way. The approach of entrepreneurship education is by definition a general one, but applications to specific disciplines will be provided. This elective course is also open for other students (after approval by the course coordinator). In this course, students will learn the ropes of this emerging field via three educational pillars:The students will be learning modern theories of entrepreneurship, with focus on subjects like innovation, entrepreneurial ecosystems, sustainable entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial finance, the life cycle of the firm, effectuation, valorization of knowledge, and typology of entrepreneurs.The students will familiarize with a set of entrepreneurial soft skills, which they will put into practice when they will be asked to approach different stakeholders to further their projects to gain commitments or to obtain important information. For this purpose, the students will receive training in generating initial ideas for opportunities, and networking and network utilization.The students will be introduced to business planning. For this purpose, the students, supported by the lectures and the tutorials, will use the Business Model Canvas for Start-ups and Scale-ups approach to make a slide deck around an innovative idea from their own discipline that they deem interesting for entrance into the market.Scientific research in entrepreneurship is not an explicit part of this course, although it is the fourth pillar of entrepreneurship education. Scientific research will be dealt with directly and indirectly within all three pillars of this course. This course is taught at the UvA. Please visit: https://studiegids.uva.nl

Teaching Methods

Lecture Seminar Computer lab session/practical training Fieldwork/excursion Presentation/symposium Self-study Working independently on e.g. a project or thesis Supervision/feedback meeting This course is taught at the UvA. Please visit: https://studiegids.uva.nl

Method of Assessment

This course loads 6 ECs. The final grade for this course is based on the Business Model Canvas for Start-ups and Scale-ups assignment and the exam. The exam is an individual assignment whereas the Business Model Canvas for Start-ups and Scale-ups assignment is a team assignment. Next to these two obligatory aspects of the course, a number of mandatory assignments have to be delivered, in order to prepare for, or to do exercises after, the lectures. This course is taught at the UvA. Please visit: https://studiegids.uva.nl