Science Based Entrepreneurship

Course goals

On completion of the course, the student will be able to:

• Understand and apply a structured approach towards the creation of innovative projects, including opportunity recognition and idea generation
• Understand how to validate entrepreneurial projects, including market, financial and legal considerations
• Appreciate the role of failure, and demonstrate constructively critical self-reflection
• Evaluate strategic choices regarding the financial and legal aspects of science-based scale-ups

Content

Content
In this course, students complement the knowledge and skills obtained in previous courses with insights into innovative and entrepreneurial processes. These insights are applicable to innovative projects within existing organizations as well as to the creation of new business ventures. Through the lens of widely applied frameworks (such as Design Thinking and the Lean Start-Up Method), students learn about opportunity recognition, idea generation, and opportunity evaluation. Multiple learning methods are combined to create an iterative combination of lectures, practical exercises, and explicit reflection on the process and outcomes of their applied work. In line with these topics, this format draws heavily on students’ capacity to self-steer, work under time pressure, and deal with ambiguity.

In addition, students learn to appreciate strategic challenges regarding science-based business start-ups. Particular focus is given to the associated legal and financial complexity, such as the importance of protecting intellectual property right versus societal impact through open science, or the sequential funding process of scientific scale-ups and what criteria to use to select the right sources of funding in each round. Again, insights are derived from academic literature as well as direct interaction with examples from the real-world.

Format of work
Self-study, mixed sessions (lectures and tutorials combined), simulations.

Materials
Various academic papers and (science-related) case studies

Tests (assessment)
40% assignment (individual/group), 60 % exam