WU stands for pioneering achievements and the creation of something new. Innovation is the engine of prosperity and economic performance. New technologies, new products, new processes, new forms of organization and new companies (start-ups) create jobs and help to tackle the great challenges of humanity in innovative ways. There is a consensus in business, society and politics that entrepreneurship, i.e. entrepreneurial thinking and action, is the decisive factor for this. 

WU as a pioneer in the DACH region

Today it is therefore hard to imagine that entrepreneurship and innovation were still marginal topics in Austria and Europe 20 years ago. At the time, WU was one of the first universities in the German-speaking region to establish a corresponding institute. A courageous step made possible by the initiative of WU professors Josef Mugler and Oskar Grün as well as Bank Austria's General Director Dr. René Alfons Haiden, who, in addition to the bank, also won over the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber, the Vienna Chamber of Commerce, the Austrian National Bank and Berndorf AG as donors.  

From MIT to WU 

The appointment to the chair went to a young visiting professor at MIT, Nikolaus Franke. In October 2001, he founded the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at WU (E&I). It was a typical start-up situation - no staff, empty rooms, no phone, no website. With a great deal of creativity and commitment, he and his initially small team built up the institute, focusing from the outset on practical orientation, the link between business and technology, and international research collaborations with universities such as MIT and Harvard. "You have to experience innovation in a concrete way - after all, if you want to learn to swim, you have to get into the water at some point," says Prof. Franke. Accordingly, in the E&I project courses students apply their theoretical knowledge to real innovation problems. Almost 1,000 projects have now been carried out with start-ups, SMEs and multinationals.  

20 years of impact 

Thanks to the enthusiasm of students and the support of the rectorate under Prof. Christoph Badelt, the institute grew quickly and sustainably - including coaches, lecturers and study assistants, the faculty now comprises around 100 people. Initiatives such as the WU Entrepreneurship Center, Entrepreneurship Avenue (the largest entrepreneurship fair in Europe), the ECN Entrepreneurship Center Network (a cooperation platform of 24 Austrian universities and universities of applied sciences on the topic of entrepreneurship) and the Social Impact Award (an initiative to promote social entrepreneurship in 40 countries) also originated here. Over 500 publications in international scholarly journals, more than 30,000 citations and 120 awards in research and teaching are an impressive track record. More than 3,500 graduates have gone on to impressive careers as founders and entrepreneurs in business, politics and administration. 14 former staff members of the institute remained loyal to academia and now teach entrepreneurship and innovation as professors at renowned international universities, such as Copenhagen Business School, Stockholm School of Economics and VU Amsterdam. "Since its founding, the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation has been a valuable bridge between academia and business and provides students with the best possible preparation for potential entrepreneurial activities," says WU’s Rector Edeltraud Hanappi-Egger. 

The theory of creative destruction teaches that nothing lasts forever. The goal of the E&I Institute is therefore to keep reinventing itself and to continue to bring the entrepreneurial mindset to the world in the next 20 years - for the benefit of science, business and society.  

Interview requests to:

Christina Pichler, BA MA

Institute Manager  
christina.pichler@wu.ac.at