Veronica Scuotto (PhD, FHEA, MBA, BA-Honours) has recently joined the University of Turin after working at the University of the West of Scotland, and at the Pôle Universitaire Léonard de Vinci in Paris. Her research interests are focused on SMEs, entrepreneurship and digital technologies. Her work has been featured in the Journal of World Business, Journal of Organizational Behaviour, Production Planning & Control, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, International Marketing Review, etc. She has authored two books. Most recently, her research was awarded as the best paper and the best commended paper at the EuroMed/SIMA. She has been recognized by International Council for Small Business (ICSB) as a global partner of excellence.

Research Focus: Open innovation in SMEs, inductive Analysis

Erik Stam is Full Professor at the Utrecht University School of Economics, where he holds
the chair of Strategy, Organization and Entrepreneurship. Next to this he is co-founder and Academic Director of the Utrecht Center for Entrepreneurship, board member of the
Utrecht University Strategic Research Theme Institutions, and research director of the
Utrecht University School of Economics. He held positions at Erasmus University Rotterdam, the University of Cambridge, the Max Planck Institute of Economics (Jena), and the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR). He is editor of Small Business Economics.

Research Focus: Systematic approaches, intrapreneurship, economic development, innovation policy

Onnolee Nordstrom is an Assistant Professor in the College of Business at North Dakota State University. Her research has examined a variety of questions pertaining to entrepreneurship, family business, philanthropy and community development. Examples include: How does owning a business contribute to familial wellbeing? How do community morals and ethics influence enterprising activity? How do we inspire youth to become engaged in their community? Her work exploring these topics has been published in several academic journals and presented at numerous academic conferences. Her most recent research project has her involved in Fargo’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. She is exploring the framing process within this ecosystem and the practices that have contributed to building an entrepreneurially conducive culture.

Research Focus: Community development, social, cultural, ethical dimensions of the ecosystem

Ted Zoller is T.W. Lewis Distinguished Clinical Scholar and Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship. He is a senior fellow at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, where he previously served as a vice president, and former president of the U.S. Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship. His research focuses on the role and structure of entrepreneurial networks and the interrelationships with investor syndicate. He collaborates with leading venture accelerators in Europe, including the Accelerace program at the Symbion Research Park in Denmark. He has taught and consulted with numerous entrepreneurial ventures, and is an active, practicing entrepreneur. He founded CommonWeal Ventures, a venture advisory and analytics firm, and is a small business owner.

Research Focus: Regional economies, business models, social network analysis

Gabi Kaffka defended her PhD at the University of Twente on the cognitive development of entrepreneurs, in particular the role of business incubation/acceleration trainings. Her focus is on university-based business incubator. Her teaching responsibilities include lectures, mentoring and seminars. She also supervised bachelor theses. Her research explores how entrepreneurs develop market orientation through individual heuristics learning. She is also interested in behavioral theories and particular in the intersubjective nature of entrepreneurial judgment. She is also consultant in Social Affairs at Ecorys with a special focus on epic Entrepreneurship Education Tool (https://epic.ecorys.com/).

Research Focus: Entrepreneurial mindset, embedded systems, intelligent environments, incubators

David B. Audretsch is Distinguished Professor and the Ameritech Chair of Economic Development at Indiana University, Director of the Institute for Development Strategies, Honorary Professor of Industrial Economics and Entrepreneurship at the WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management in Germany and Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research in London. He is co-author of The Seven Secrets of Germany, published by Oxford University Press. He is co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Small Business Economics. He was awarded the Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research by the Swedish Entrepreneurship Forum (Entreprenörskapsforum). Audretsch was also awarded the Schumpeter Prize from the University of Wuppertal in Germany.

Research Focus: Regional economies, entrepreneurial societies, ecosystems, innovation

Yipeng Liu is a Professor in Management and Organization Studies at Henley Business School, University of Reading, UK. Previously, he worked as Director of Research at Department of Entrepreneurship and Local Economy, Birmingham University, UK and Newcastle University, UK. Prof Liu obtained a doctorate (magna cum laude) in management from Mannheim University, Germany. His research has been sponsored by British Academy, the Leverhulme Trust, Sino-British Fellowship Trust and DAAD in Germany, among others. His research interests center on international entrepreneurship and the emerging market multinationals from a cross-cultural and comparative perspective by embracing the notion of ‘West-Meets-East’. 

Research Focus: Leadership, organisations and behaviour, international entrepreneurship, China.

Magnus Klofsten is professor in Innovation & Entrepreneurship and founding director of Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) at Linköping University, Sweden. His research is oriented towards the early growth and development of technology-based firms, financing young ventures and university-industry relations. Over the years he has built up thorough experience of planning and implementation of different growth and development programs for technology-based firms. His research focuses on entrepreneurship in the early stages of forming a business or other forms of business development. Other studies concern regional development and support of entrepreneurship.

Research Focus: Platforms, incubators, sustainable entrepreneurship

Maribel Guerrero is Associate Professor at Newcastle Business School. She holds a Ph.D. and M.Phil. in Business Economics at the Department of Business of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain). Her research interests focus on: [I] the determinants of intra/entrepreneurial activities developed in/from public and private organizations; [ II ] the impacts of intra/entrepreneurial activities on the societal, economic and technological development of economies; [ III ] the entrepreneurial and innovative ecosystems; and [IV] emerging economies. She is interested in the configuration, the evolutionary process and the novel metrics and methodologies to explore University Entrepreneurship Ecosystems across the globe.

Research Focus: University-based ecosystem, evolutionary process, configuration

Bernd Wurth is co-organizer of the PDW and Lecturer at the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship within Strathclyde Business School. His research aims to understand the economy as a complex system and using the entrepreneurial ecosystem concept as a frame of refence for understanding why some regions prosper and other struggle. Bernd’s doctoral research focuses on developing a hybrid system dynamics/agent-based simulation in the context of academic entrepreneurship and university ecosystems. This provides the foundation for further research on ecosystems and methodological developments to model the dynamics of complex systems. He is a co-founder and managing director of the Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Research Network Ltd.

Research Focus: Entrepreneurial dynamics, complex systems, academic entrepreneurship