The Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation offers one of the most renowned and popular specializations for bachelor students at the Vienna University of Economics and Business.

Graduates from our specialization work in a variety of industries and professions. Our 4,500+ alumni enjoy exciting and prestigious careers ranging from top managers in large corporations and business consultants to innovation managers and start-up founders.

The success of our alumni largely results from the unique education they received as part of the E&I specialization, which stands out from other specializations due to the following four points:

• Lecturers apply an awardwinning problem-based learning approach with state-of-the-art content

• Application-oriented education – around 30 real-world projects in cooperation with start-ups and large corporations each semester

• Powerful network – More than 200 global partners from research and the private sector, incl. BCG, strategy&, Bain, and many more, involved in our curriculum each semester

• Close collaboration with the startup ecosystem, offering impulses from and exchange with experts and like-minded people

Advantages

Our SBWL offers a broad spectrum of topics and numerous benefits for students. As an E&I student, you’ll gain a strong foundation that prepares you for careers in all types of organizations – from start-ups and consultancies to global corporations. No matter where your interests lie, we’ve got you covered.

Every semester, we ask our students for feedback to help us assess and improve the program. According to our students, the following factors make our specialization unique:  

• Practical innovation projects and the opportunity to network with renowned companies and institutions

• Innovative teaching concepts that cover cutting-edge topics and broad, practice-oriented content

• Input on how to manage innovation, entrepreneurial development, and business growth

• Networking with other people interested in founding a business

Teaching Concept

Our goal is to provide our students with first-class entrepreneurship and innovation management skills, which we achieve with our unique teaching concept based on three pillars: knowledge, application, and networking.

Structure

We offer our specialization in five courses granting 4 credits (ECTS) each. These courses can be divided into the blocks “Knowledge” (Core Lecture) and “Application & Networking” (E&I Zones and Projects). There is a mandatory sequence for the courses: Registration for courses 2 to 5 (E&I Zones and Projects) can only take place after registering for course 1 (Core Lecture).

We offer a strategically diversified portfolio of courses that teach different skills, so students can choose from a number of options for courses 2 through 5 to ensure a perfect fit.

Please note that students must successfully complete course 4 before enrolling in course 5, which means that it is not possible to take two projects courses at the same time.

Students can complete the Entrepreneurship & Innovation specialization in a minimum of two semesters, or take three or more semesters if they prefer. We encourage our students to set their own pace. Two possible paths are shown below, one for completing the E&I specialization in two semesters and one in three semesters.

For more information on the individual courses, please consult Learn@wu and the electronic course catalog (eVVZ).