New Venture Creation in the Amsterdam Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

About

The creation of new ventures is one of the most important economic issues of this time, all over the world. It is not limited to start-ups only, but also applies to the development of new activities by existing firms (among them corporates) and spin-offs by universities, company expansions, take-overs, and scale-ups, and much more.

Amsterdam offers a broad and interesting palette of entrepreneurs, firms and entrepreneurial organizations, this is called the Amsterdam entrepreneurial ecosystem. The Center for Entrepreneurship of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam plays an important role in the Amsterdam entrepreneurial ecosystem. Therefore, this international summer school is the right opportunity to study new venture creation and entrepreneurship.

This course follows a double approach. The first approach is the sustainable entrepreneurship approach, dealing with the economic, social, and ecological aspects of new ventures. The second approach is the life cycle of the firm approach, dealing with the changes of the firm and the entrepreneur during the life cycle of the firm.

Next to above-mentioned approaches, an important part of the content of this course is determined by the students themselves, who are expected to come up with their own business ideas and contributions, guided by the course lecturers.

After morning lectures which discuss topics as the Business Model Canvas for Start-ups and Scale-ups and the Amsterdam entrepreneurial ecosystem, in the afternoons the students work on practical assignments, with additional support from outside experts.

The course ends with the online elevator pitches of the team assignments, in a Dragon’s Den/Shark Tank setting.

Course leader

Prof. dr. Enno Masurel

Target group

This course is open to Advanced Bachelor's but we also welcome Master's and PhD students from any discipline, from all over the world. The level of assessment is on Advanced Bachelor level (third year).

Course aim

By the end of this course, students will:

1) Have developed an innovative outlook on entrepreneurship.
2) Have developed an awareness that value-adding opportunities not only contain financial aspects but also social and environmental aspects (sustainable entrepreneurship).
3) Have developed insight into, and actually developed, their own enterprising competencies.
4) Have learned about the processes involved in the recognition and exploitation of opportunities, about creating societal value, and about the nature and role of networks.
5) Have gained the ability to write a feasibility plan on how to bring an innovation to the market.

Fee info

Students, PhD candidates and employees of VU Amsterdam, Amsterdam UMC or an Aurora Network Partner €765 Students and PhD candidates at partner universities of VU Amsterdam €1035 Students and PhD candidates at non-partner universities of VU Amsterdam €1140 Professionals €1360