IESE to manage €4.3 million from EU Commission for deep-tech entrepreneurship

The European Commission has chosen IESE Business School to co-lead three projects worth a combined €34 million, with €4.3 million of that total managed by IESE. These projects aim to boost entrepreneurial innovation in Europe and Latin America over the next five years, by helping:

• Bridge the gap between cutting-edge technology research and successfully bringing research-led innovations to market.
• Foster job creation and technology adoption in high-growth firms aspiring to become unicorns.
• Promote corporate-startup innovations across Europe and Latin America.

According to Prof. Gaizka Ormazabal, IESE Associate Dean for Research and PhD Program, “Fostering entrepreneurship is an essential part of IESE’s mission. We aim to develop leaders who will have a deep and lasting impact through their professional excellence and spirit of service. Successful entrepreneurs, those with a real sense of purpose, provide a great service to society. These initiatives aim to support this endeavor.”

Project 1: Connecting European engineers with entrepreneurs

As part of the university alliance EuroTeQ, IESE will embark on a four-year project to further enhance collaboration between elite engineering institutions  – such as the Technical University of Munich, Denmark´s Technical University, École Polytechnique, Eindhoven University of Technology, Tallinn University of Technology, and the Czech Technical University in Prague – with leading business schools like IESE and HEC Paris. The alliance´s objective is to help promote the successful market implementation of pioneering technology research.

“In this cross-disciplinary collaboration, IESE will implement four entrepreneurship bootcamps for engineering students, empowering them to address technology-driven sustainability challenges. This initiative will also enhance our MiM/MBA partnerships with other renowned institutions,” says Prof. Marc Badia, IESE Deputy Dean and Associate Dean for MBA and MiM Programs.

The project kick-off will take place in November 2023, and include a Presidential Strategy Forum in Munich for Deans and senior members of the alliance.

Project 2: Promoting the deep-tech scaleup ecosystem in Europe

The EU commission will collaborate with IESE, as well as other institutions (TechTour, Bpifrance, EurA, Webrazzi, and Hello Tomorrow), to oversee the implementation of the new European Innovation Council´s Scale Up 100 initiative, which aims to identify, promote, and support the growth of 100 promising deep-tech companies in Europe with the potential to achieve unicorn status.

Through the participation of several IESE professors such as Thomas Klueter and Jeroen Neckebrouck, IESE will produce 12 publications addressing the challenges of scaling up, offering practical recommendations and contributing to policy forecasting in this area through IESE´s Scaleup Institute. According to Christoph Zott, IESE Head of the Entrepreneurship Faculty Department, “IESE entrepreneurship faculty develops cutting-edge research, shedding light into novel, relevant, and impactful fields.”

Project 3: Boosting corporate-startup innovations across Europe and Latam

IESE is the academic partner for the new EU-LAC Digital Accelerator, which facilitates partnerships between startups and corporates within Europe and Latin America in order to promote digital transformation across the two regions during the next five years.

As academic partner, IESE will be responsible for developing white papers on corporate venturing and technology transfer, in addition to providing bootcamps and sharing best practices on how startups and corporates can best work together, among other activities. Apart from IESE, the key strategic partners of the alliance include Tecnalia, the European Business Network, Wayra (Telefónica), Expertise France, Caribbean Export, the European Business Angels Network, and the Interamerican Development Bank Lab.

“This initiative aims to enhance the collaboration across the corporate innovation ecosystem in Latin America and Europe”, according to Prof. Mª Julia Prats, Academic Director of IESE’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center.

Growing the IESE ecosystem for entrepreneurs, innovators, and investors

These initiatives will also enable the further development of the school’s holistic ecosystem for entrepreneurs, innovators and investors. “Entrepreneurship needs more than academic knowledge to flourish. This is why the school has developed a connected ecosystem to support our students, alumni, and society to bring entrepreneurial dreams to life,” affirmed Josemaria Siota, Executive Director of the IESE Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center.