OPEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Are YOU an experienced entrepreneur hungry for more, a world-class researcher with a brilliant idea, an ambitious corporate intrapreneur or a seasoned business angel looking for the next big thing?

Open Entrepreneurship is a Danish initiative aiming to turn world-class research into world-class spin-outs. 

In Denmark, we have excellent and leading researchers, but how can their knowledge and efforts benefit the society? Studies have shown that matching research teams with experienced and external entrepreneurs creates more sustainable businesses. This commercialization catalyzes the research and knowledge into products or processes that generates value to the society.

We will capture the value through an action-oriented approach by connecting experienced entrepreneurs with researchers very early on to explore commercial and innovative opportunities. These can either be entrepreneurial (spinout or startup company) or intrapreneurial (within the university, company or organization).

This way, the research team has a much deeper understanding of their options, which helps the existing commercial ecosystem on the universities i.e. tech transfer units and business development units. By doing so, Open Entrepreneurship will expand and further develop the existing ecosystem into a technology commercialization community. All methods used in Open Entrepreneurship are research based and recognized.

Open Entrepreneurship is a collaborative initiative: Danish partner universities are Aalborg University, Aarhus University, Copenhagen Business School, IT University of Copenhagen, Roskilde University, Technical University of Denmark,  University of Copenhagen & University of Southern Denmark. Californian UC Berkeley is the strategic partner. Together we utilize our extensive networks to build bridges between industry, universities, sectors and national borders. Open Entrepreneurship is powered by  the Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science. 

RESEARCH BASED

The methods that Open Entrepreneurship is built upon are research based and the program itself is based in the middle of the research at the universities.

One significant fact that sets Open Entrepreneurship apart from other entrepreneurial programs is that the program is embedded directly in the cutting-edge research environments. The program aims to create and capture as much value as possible of the research done at the participating universities by matching researchers with seasoned entrepreneurs and business angels. These professionals (who traditionally are external to the universities) are invited directly into the lab environment and become co-founding team members for the research based start-ups, typically in a role as CEO or co-founding board member.

A primary goal is to establish more sustainable start-ups from university research. And in addition, to identify more opportunities for “spinning-in” technology into established companies. All serve the same goal: to create and capture value for the society.

The reasoning behind focusing on early stage research and enabling the match early on, is that there is a gap to be bridged.