Entrepreneurship and Innovation

An entrepreneurial mindset and the ability to manage and support innovation processes under conditions of uncertainty and distributed knowledge is essential to new venture creation, but has also become a key competence in existing private and public sector organizations. The purpose of the course is to provide non-business students interested in developing their own ventures or in entrepreneurial and innovation processes with a basic set of theories and roadmaps of possible actions and tools they can use to engage in new ventures or innovation teams. Moreover, the course is designed to stimulate entrepreneurial and innovative activities within and outside university and in different business and non-business future employment situations, including work in cross-disciplinary and cross-institutional set-ups.
The course aims to create awareness for an entrepreneurial and innovative mindset in the students' specific area through a focus on the interdisciplinary and team-based application of theories and tools in the context of their own and their team members' academic experience. The final outcome is that students will be able to build on the knowledge and teamwork experiences from the course during their entrepreneurial career, and in further graduate courses on specific topics within innovation, entrepreneurship, and business development.

Knowledge:
· Show an overview of theories and concepts in entrepreneurship and innovation management, including entrepreneurial and innovation processes, design thinking, business modelling, and business planning
· Describe the characteristics of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship
· Classify different types of innovation
· List and describe creativity and business development tools.

Skills:
· Work with entrepreneurship and innovation processes in relation to their fields of study
· Communicate ideas to stakeholders including team members, investors, customers, and other potential partners
· Give and receive feedback for idea development
· Use creativity and business development tools in team settings.

Competences:
· Apply the theoretical foundations and the approaches learned in the course to engage in entrepreneurial activities in new or existing private firms, public organizations (including universities), or NGOs
· Understand the role of design thinking, planning, stakeholders, value capture, and resources in entrepreneurship and innovation processes
· Independently identify and approach stakeholders necessary for the development of business ideas
· Manage creativity and business idea development processes in interdisciplinary settings.