Master in Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Applicants should hold a Master’s degree or the first year of a Master’s degree (240 ECTS) in traditional business disciplines. Students holding Humanities or Science degrees (biology, physics and engineering, for instance) are also invited to apply.

Candidates holding a Bachelor’s degree (180 ECTS) and a substantial amount of professional experience (3 years) are also welcome.

Admission is conditional to the examination of the applicant’s scholastic record.

Entrepreneurship has become an increasingly popular term that can be evidenced in different spheres of the economy and society. More commonly, entrepreneurial behaviours are associated with new start-up ventures where risk, ownership and management are combined to exploit new market or technological opportunities. But such activities can also be seen in corporate, social, public, civic, community and small business contexts to reflect organizational efforts to sustain competitive advantage, uniqueness and novelty. This is partly because the twenty-first century is characterized by a fast moving, competitive and global economy. Sustaining a competitive advantage requires that individuals, companies and nations are able to anticipate and stimulate (rather than merely manage) change.

Entrepreneurship is about exploiting ambiguities and contingencies. More importantly, entrepreneurship is about experiencing a tension between ‘what is’ in the present and ‘what should be’ in the future – and then converting that tension into an entrepreneurial problem that can resolve the tension. Such a process demands concepts and knowledge from different disciplines, and the integration of these concepts with the know-how and practical experience of daily business practice.
The programme aims at achieving that integration, optimally balancing theory and know-how.

The programme is structured into 6 knowledge blocks that introduce the ideas and tools necessary to understand the theory of entrepreneurship and innovation; and apply entrepreneurship in practice.

• Entrepreneurship
  • enterprise culture and values;
  • starting a new business theories of entrepreneurship: creativity and opportunity identification;
  • entrepreneurial environments;
  • entrepreneurial management;
  • strategic entrepreneurship;
  • business planning:
    • purpose,
    • structure,
    • content and presentation;
  • growth, learning and dynamic capabilities of small firms.
• Managing Innovation
  • the dynamics of innovation;
  • organising innovation;
  • managing convergence in innovation;
  • innovation and sustainability.
• Finance for entrepreneurial businesses
  • risk, return and valuation principles;
  • typology and forecasting of revenues and expenses;
  • capital budgeting: risk and cost of capital;
  • debt;
  • real options;
  • venture capital industry and investment process;
  • structuring venture capital deals;
  • exit strategies;
  • business valuation and harvesting decisions.
• Marketing
  • market segments and international marketing programmes;
  • branding;
  • cultural differences in marketing;
  • international strategies when establishing businesses in different countries.
• Entrepreneurial tools
  • financial accounting,
  • presentation skills,
  • negotiation.
• Masters Thesis
  • combining the academic knowledge taught in the classroom with the practical work and knowledge acquired within the mentor company. This block will be supported by methodology lectures, and embedded in a broader set of interactions between faculty, mentors and students.

Project-based Internship(s) and the masters thesis and the student-mentor-faculty relation

In semester 2, students work on a project based internship that leads to a Masters thesis. Linking students to companies is facilitated through matchmaking events between the LBA and companies in the Greater Region.

Master in Entrepreneurship and Innovation