In February – March 2025 a new course was launched at the VU: Entrepreneurship in Science and Technology. This new course is a merger between a number of previous courses, among them Entrepreneurship in Renewable Energy.
The target group of this course consists of students of the UvA & VU Joint Degree MSc in Physics and Astronomy, the UvA & VU Joint Degree MSc in Chemistry, and the VU MSc MSc Biomedical Physics and Technology (other students were welcomed as well).
This course has three main pillars:
- The Business Model Canvas for Start-ups and Scale-ups: the students develop an innovative idea from their own discipline towards the market.
- The students develop their own soft and practical skills, like generating initial ideas for opportunities, networking, negotiation and accounting.
- The students learn about modern theories of entrepreneurship, like entrepreneurial ecosystems, sustainable entrepreneurship, the life cycle of the small firm and effectuation.
Two highlights from practice during this course were the visit to the VU StartHub and the VU Demonstrator Lab, and the guest lecture by Mr Jeroen Tas (Tech Investor and Advisor), about the platform model and more.
About 35 students joined the course. They were very happy with the course, with an average valuation of 4.0 on a five point scale. They also clearly indicated that this course has made them more entrepreneurial. Two comments by the students: ‘The course takes students out of their comfort zone’ and ‘It is very interesting for science students who want to give entrepreneurship a try’.
The academic staff of this course: Dr Francesca Bacco (Management and Organization Department, School of Business and Economics of the VU), Dr Marco van Gelderen (Management and Organization Department, School of Business and Economics of the VU), Professor Dr Davide Iannuzzi (Chief Impact Officer of the VU and co-founder of Optics11) and professor Dr Enno Masurel (VU Center for Entrepreneurship, School of Business and Economics of the VU).