The Institute for Entrepreneurship (IES) has a clear mission, namely to promote entrepreneurship from an early stage and across all faculty boundaries. Besides conventional start-ups, it also addresses the question of how innovative ideas can be put into practice at existing organizations. One particularly important aspect is the institute’s close working relationship with the enaCom Transfer Center, the University´s central institution for bringing knowledge into business and society. Thus, the IES is not only fueling innovativeness at the University but is also elevating its strategic importance as a catalyst for a sustainable future.
Homing in on sustainable entrepreneurship
The IES’s research revolves around a number of questions, such as “How does entrepreneurship come about?” and “How can start-up entrepreneurs become drivers of sustainability, transformation and innovation?” For example, Dr. Denise Fischer-Kreer, Professor for Entrepreneurial Behaviour, is running a research project to study how founders can develop entrepreneurial resilience. She explains: “People setting up sustainable businesses face a great many challenges specific to the world of sustainable entrepreneurship, such as a harder time raising capital and loftier moral expectations. This can leave them emotionally drained and lead some of them to abandon entrepreneurship entirely, which in turn puts the brakes on efforts to achieve key societal objectives.” To strengthen sustainable entrepreneurship, therefore, those establishing sustainable businesses need to learn ways of processing setbacks, stress and negative emotional experiences.
Professor David Antons, Professor for Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management in Agribusiness, is leading another project investigating whether and to what extent investors are getting involved in conflict-hit parts of Africa. Start-ups are capable of driving innovations quickly and thus helping to solve global challenges. In order to do this, however, they need money—something that is particularly hard to come by early on, especially if the start-up in question is based in an African country affected by political conflict, rioting or war. “Financial backers don’t invest in countries like these, because the risk is too great for them—even if they specialize in venture capital,” David Antons says. “In our project, we want to identify the underlying conditions that need to be in place in the country and at the start-up to be able to secure venture capital.”
Studying with a practical bent
On the teaching side, meanwhile, the IES is expanding its practical and innovative entrepreneurship training in order to help students devise sustainable business models. In their seminars and courses, therefore, students do not just tackle the “bland” theory of setting up a business, being self-employed and what entrepreneurship means. “Students on my courses are given the freedom to come up with their own business ideas and business models and work on them from a really practical angle,” Professor Fischer-Kreer says. One good example is the Sustainable Entrepreneurship & Venturing module at master’s level, where students decide to work on an entrepreneurial approach combating food waste.Student Kathrin Schumilin further developed her business idea of creating a sustainable alternative to cocoa butter from mango kernels and went on to claim second place in the Female Innovation Award 2025 with her “Mangolade.”
In a similar vein, students taking the Strategic Technology and Innovation Management master’s module can develop strategies to introduce sustainable technologies, e.g. for vertical farming—growing crops in several layers stacked one on top of the other. Meanwhile, the Innovation Research Methods master’s module sees Professor Antons and his team guide students through design thinking processes. They use these to develop solutions, products or services—plus the associated business models—for precisely these kinds of sustainable technology in order to spark the entrepreneurial idea required for a potential spin-off.
However, the IES does not exist solely to serve students in the Faculty of Agricultural, Nutritional, and Engineering Sciences: the Entrepreneurship and Business Management bachelor’s-level module, for example, is already open to three faculties, with more poised to recognize it as an elective. This particular module gives students a comprehensive introduction into the fundamentals of entrepreneurship, especially into making business decisions and strategic management.
And the IES presents a number of exciting opportunities for teachers and researchers too: from joint teaching formats and transfer projects through to research partnerships, the institute provides a space to try out new concepts and develop them further. In especially high demand are innovative approaches that hone skills such as long-term thinking and running impact analyses and that thus enrich teaching at the University of Bonn.
