According to the European Commission’s definition, entrepreneurship is “the ability of individuals to turn ideas into action. It implies creativity, innovation and risk-taking, as well as the ability to plan and carry out projects in order to achieve specific goals. It helps individuals in their daily lives at home or in society, enables workers to be aware of their work environment and seize opportunities, and is the foundation on which entrepreneurs build a social or commercial activity.” In higher education institutions, entrepreneurship teaching should particularly teach those skills how to start and run a business, as well as support business ideas. Entrepreneurship should be embedded in various subjects of the study programs and thus achieve an added value in all courses, the European Commission further recommends.
In Austria, the FTI strategy points to the importance of entrepreneurship as a subject and also notes its strengthening. In addition, the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research (BMBWF) and the EESI Impulse Center of the BMBWF summarized key European recommendations on entrepreneurship education as part of the Austrian EU Presidency in 2018. Among other things, it states that “Entrepreneurship competencies should be anchored at all levels of education – starting in kindergarten and elementary school and extending to universities.” Universities such as TU Wien can contribute to the further development of our technology-driven society by establishing the model of an entrepreneurial university for part of the comprehensive research output of their scientists and students, which focuses on increasing the degree of commercialization of academic research results and promoting an inter-university culture of innovation. The aim is to align entrepreneurial activities with the university’s core tasks of teaching and research, to foster an internal, technology- and entrepreneur-friendly culture, to support risk-taking and to build innovation potential within the institution.
Research matrix: Foundation and application
The five major pillars of the TU Wien’s research profile are “Computational Science and Engineering”, “Quantum Physics and Technologies”, “Materials and Matter”, “Information and Communication Technology” and “Energy and Environment”. The activities of the TU Wien are based on predominantly interdisciplinary or cross-faculty or cross-institutional research fields that are subordinate to these research priorities. Along this “TUW research matrix”, the profile is formed, in particular through the appointment policy, the internal funding programmes, the orientation of the research infrastructure and the complementary support of researchers who are successful in renowned grants and funding programmes. In order to give visibility to and evaluate/profile research outside of the five TUW focal points, the TUW research matrix has been expanded to include four “Additional Fields of Research”. These respective fields include the development of the arts and basic (economic) mathematical research. It is particularly important to form value chains from the natural sciences to the engineering sciences through the interaction of basic research and application-oriented research.
