Entrepreneurship in Science and Technology

Course manual 2025/2026

Course content

Entrepreneurship, here defined as ‘the creation, discovery and exploitation of value-adding opportunities’, is an increasingly important subject for students and professionals, also in the discipline science and all its different branches (including science, business & innovation). The growing complexity and accelerating dynamics of the involved technologies emphatically urges professionals to think, act, and communicate in an entrepreneurial way. This elective course responds to this urge and offers students from the UvA & VU JD MSc in Physics and Astronomy, the UvA & VU JD MSc in Chemistry, the VU MSc Science, Business and Innovation and the VU MSc the VU MSc Biomedical Physics and Technology the possibility to develop themselves in an entrepreneurial way. The course is also open to other students (after approval by the course coordinators).  The course is a merger of various earlier courses in the field of science and technology. One of them is the course Entrepreneurship in Renewable Energy, that has been developed by the Erasmus+ Project Entrepreneurship in Renewable Energy (entRENEW), initiated and controlled by the European Commission. This project has been labeled as ‘Best Practice’ by the European Commission (see: https://entrenew.eu).

Objectives

• After the successful completion of this course, the student will:
• Be familiar with an innovation outlook on entrepreneurship.
• Be aware that value-adding opportunities not only contain financial aspects but also social and ecological aspects (sustainable entrepreneurship).
• Have developed insight into, and actual developed, one’s own enterprising competences.
• 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.
• Have gained the ability to write a feasibility plan on how to bring an innovation to the market.
• Have gained knowledge of different entrepreneurial processes and the importance of valorization of scientific findings and business ideas for a knowledge-based economy.

Teaching methods

• Lecture
• Seminar
• Self-study
• Presentation/symposium
• Supervision/feedback meeting

Learning activities

Attendance

Additional requirements for this course:

No mandatory presence.

Assessment

This course loads 6 ECs. The final grade for this course is based on the Business Model Canvas for Start-ups and Scale-ups assignment (50%) and the exam (50%). Both forms of examination should be sufficient, with grades of at least 5.5. The exam is an individual assignment whereas the Business Model Canvas for Start-ups and Scale-ups assignment is a group assignment. Next to these two obligatory aspects of the course, a number of mandatory assignments have to be delivered, in order to prepare for, or to do exercises after, the lectures. Each examination form has one re-sit opportunity.

Presence with the lectures and tutorials is not mandatory but highly recommended.

Inspection of assessed work

See Course Manual on Canvas.

See Course Manual on Canvas.

Assignments

See Course Manual.

Fraud and plagiarism

The 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' applies to this course. This will be monitored carefully. Upon suspicion of fraud or plagiarism the Examinations Board of the programme will be informed. For the 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' see: www.student.uva.nl

Course structure

Contact information

Coordinator

• E. Masurel

e.masurel@vu.nl