Chalmers School of Entrepreneurship

Education

The Master's programme Entrepreneurship and Business Design is also known as Chalmers School of Entrepreneurship. This is an environment where entrepreneurship is experienced and not only taught in classrooms. Here students work with real venture projects during the education and apply their knowledge, creativity and entrepreneurial ability in real settings. We combine an internationally acknowledged academic education and research with real value-creation in an entrepreneurial environment. Unlike other Chalmers programmes, it’s not only open to engineering students but also to students with backgrounds in business, economics, law, science and design.

The two-year international Master of Science programme develops your entrepreneurial ability through a combination of classroom teaching, simulated business scenarios and the development of real R&D-based innovation projects.

Details about the programme, such as curriculum and how to apply, are available at Chalmers’ Master’s Programmes websites:

Entrepreneurship and Business Design, MSc

More about the elective context specialisations:

Corporate Entrepreneurship context specialisation

Entrepreneurship is becoming a critical corporate capability as we see more disruptive and radical innovation. The Corporate Entrepreneurship track (CORP) offers students an opportunity to develop their entrepreneurial capabilities through running an innovation project within a partner company, together with dedicated faculty and company mentors.

Within the CORP track, students acquire entrepreneurial skills through developing innovation and handling complexities within large firms. During the second year, students work in pairs and operatively run an innovation project while at the same time learning how to handle organizational relationships. While being primarily operative, the projects are also anchored in the top management and there seen as a tool for infusing more entrepreneurial capabilities throughout the organization.

This track focuses on the role and skills of being entrepreneurial within an established organizational context. This includes connecting technologies to new customers and needs while mobilizing resources and anchoring opportunities in a corporate setting. Mentoring and peer-learning in this track focus upon how to manage relationships, how to communicate both externally and internally, and how to manage and organize for innovation and change.

Entrepreneurial Leadership Lab

The Corporate Entrepreneurship track is part of the Entrepreneurial Leadership Lab run by the Center for Higher Ambition Leadership, together with corporate partners. The purpose of the lab is to enable partner firms to become more innovative and entrepreneurial, and to learn and to rethink together with faculty and students. In one-year partnerships linked to the lab, two students will take on a more disruptive innovation project as their thesis-work.

The benefits of the lab are many. Companies get access to action-oriented faculty with entrepreneurial and corporate experience. It opens up a chance to try out new ideas and improve the business while getting to know ambitious students from Chalmers. And most importantly, students will learn at a rapid pace.

The lab enables more radical projects to progress in partner organizations while offering an experiential and reflective education into how to drive innovation and renewal. The Entrepreneurial Leadership Lab has worked with companies from the automotive industry, medtech, energy, media, to name a few.

Running a project for an entire year

During the first year of the program, you are offered to be involved in attracting corporate partners for the Entrepreneurial Leadership Lab. During the second semester you pursue the project-based Idea Evaluation course which also results in them being paired up and assigned a corporate partner to run an innovation project. Starting in September this project constitutes the main foundation for a one-year master thesis. Apart from being at the corporate partners and in the field connecting with new customers etc., you are also expected to be regularly in the school environment for joint reflective and learning sessions. Running a project for an entire year offers you intense learning in how to navigate through different hurdles and to progress an innovation project.

After graduation

Students from this track have great opportunities for leading roles and positions in large corporations in all areas. Graduates from this track typically have roles within business development and as project managers or in other managerial roles. Many students have been hired by the partner company they have worked with in order to continue developing the project started during the education. Some also use their gained entrepreneurial capabilities to start and run their own companies.

Technology Venture Creation context specialisation

As part of the Technology Venture Creation (TECH) track, our students are in the driver’s seat of an innovative techology based project and develop hands-on skills in business creation and entrepreneurial leadership. When we founded Chalmers School of Entrepreneurship back in 1997 it was with the intention to bridge the gap between university research and commercial reality – to create real value while obtaining an academic education. Today the Technology Venture Creation track is a vital part of the leading technology start-up environment in Sweden.

The mission to develop entrepreneurs and advanced technology ventures is carried out in cooperation with idea partners from academic research and R&D departments at major firms. Together we work to transform promising ideas and research projects into thriving businesses. Through this reality-based approach, we educate entrepreneurial leaders fit for running start-ups as well as business development in established firms.

The key to this innovative value creation is the students and the teams they form during the education. By acquiring knowledge, tools and the competence needed to shape the future of technology ventures and projects, and being allowed to apply their creativity on real innovation projects, the students create real value for the project as well as develop their entrepreneurial ability through a true “learning-by-doing” pedagogy.

In addition to the academic education, the school’s close connection with experienced entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurial eco system forms a valuable network of support and advice for the students doing technology venturing.

Real Venture Creation

During the second semester of the program, TECHtrack students are divided into teams, which are then matched with researchers and innovators who have ideas with commercial potential. During the second year, , the students engage in the commercial development of the project, such as attracting funding, technology & product development, building team and the creation of IP. The real venture creation is combined with academic Master’s Thesis work. Taking care of daily business generates empirical data, which is then anchored with theory and verified through academic methods.

The venture projects our students work with are relevant in a variety of application areas. They create ventures within renewable energy, medical devices, artificial intelligence, and new materials, just to name a few.
Our students do not merely learn a topic or prepare for a career, but learn by acting, creating and reflecting. They are given the opportunity to assess innovative ideas, start companies, drive social entrepreneurship projects or work on entrepreneurial projects within large organizations.

A chance to be an owner of a start-up

Each year, 4-5 of the venture projects developed by the students within the Technology Venture Creation track are incorporated together with Chalmers Ventures – Chalmers incubator and seed-financier. This creates an opportunity for one or more of the students involved in the project to carry on as business developers within the newly formed company.

Each student involved in an innovation project that is successfully incorporated can gain an ownership stake. Students who continue to work operatively normally obtain an even larger share. Those students not ending up incorporating still have strong ties and networks into the venture creation ecosystem and its continuous flow of opportunities. And have usually obtained a Master of Science degree.

After graduation

A majority of the students from the TECH track operate as entrepreneurial leaders and managers today. Around a third of the venture track alumni continue in new ventures, either founded as part of the education or later. TECH track alumni are keen on identifying and realizing new opportunities wherever they operate. Hence, the majority of alumni from this track pursue careers as business developers, projects managers, management consultants, investment managers and executives in leading corporations spanning over media, med-tech, telecom, IT and beyond.

In collaboration with Chalmers Ventures

Chalmers Ventures is an incubator and seed-investor, fully owned by Chalmers. Since 2001, the close relationship between the school and an incubator has created a sophisticated mechanism to enhance both entrepreneurial learning as well as value creation coming from ventures. Chalmers Ventures engages in the TECH track by recruiting idea partners, , with promising spin-off ideas that need complementary entrepreneurial competence to move on. Student teams are then formed with idea partners around selected ideas, allowing learning as well as value to be created during the final year of the master’s program. Chalmers Ventures takes responsibility for incorporating the promising ventures together with idea partners, track students and other identified key persons. This can occur at any time during the final year of the education or after graduation.