Only two decades ago, entrepreneurship played hardly any role at WU Vienna and in Austria in general. The Austrian mentality seemed to have lost sight of its once impressive entrepreneurial tradition incarnated by iconic figures such as Joseph Schumpeter or Peter Drucker. Values and norms such as opportunity-seeking, risk-taking, and the need for independence only played a minor role in education, media, and generally in society. Thus, when I started as a Professor here, I faced a prototypical start-up situation. I saw the potential and had a vision, but resources were scarce, scepticism was strong, and the challenge appeared unsurmountable.
However, having experienced the almost miraculous effects of unleashed entrepreneurial power during my guest professorship at MIT, I started my own entrepreneurial journey with a small and highly motivated team here at WU. Key to the success was our applied problem-solving approach in teaching, where we collaborate with start-ups and innovative companies. Through highly attractive courses and successful projects, we have attracted talent among students and created a strong momentum as also more and more partners would collaborate with us. We launched many additional initiatives and innovated wildly. This allowed us to grow fast and foster entrepreneurship at our university into “the” hot topic. Our fantastic entrepreneurial students and alumni have helped creating a lively and fast growing entrepreneurship ecosystem in Vienna and Austria in general. My role is to keep this entrepreneurial spirit in order to recognize and exploit further opportunities!

Prof. Eric von Hippel
Full professor
Sloan School of Management,  MIT



Prof. Karim Lakhani
Full professor
Harvard Business School,  Harvard University



Prof. Christian Lüthje
Full professor
Institute for Innovation Marketing,  Hamburg University of Technology



Prof. Marc Gruber
Full professor
Entrepreneurship and Technology Commercialization,  EPFL Lausanne



Prof. Christoph Hienerth
Full professor
Chair of Entrepreneurship,  WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management



Prof. Reinhard Prügl
Full professor
Innovation, Technologie und Entrepreneurship,  Zeppelin University



Prof. Dietmar Harhoff
Full professor
Innovation and Competition,  Max Planck Institute



Prof. Martin Schreier
Full professor
Marketing Management,  WU Vienna



Dr. Rudolf Dömötör
Director
Entrepreneurship Center,  WU Vienna



Prof. Peter Keinz
Deputy Director
Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation,  WU Vienna



Dr. Peter Vandor
Director
Social Entrepreneurship Center,  WU Vienna



Dr. Klaus Marhold
Post Doc
Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation,  WU Vienna

My former colleagues Prof. Joseph Mugler and Prof. Oskar Grün helped me getting to WU Vienna and were invaluable mentors particularly in my early years here. Former Rector Prof. Christoph Badelt was an early strong supporter of the institute and me. My own doctoral supervisor Prof. Eberhard Witte (who passed away in 2016) was the single most important inspiration and mentor in my academic life – a truly entrepreneurial professor.
Most acknowledgements, however, should go to our faculty and particularly our entrepreneurial students and alumni. I believe that entrepreneurship cannot be taught in the sense of “transforming” an individual – what is possible is sparking the entrepreneurial flame and thereby freeing the inner potential for innovation and change. I am grateful for all the engagement, motivation, ideas, energy, crazy out-of-the-box thinking these wonderful people demonstrated when having the opportunity!