Academic staff
You will receive high-quality contemporary teaching in a stimulating academic environment. Our academic staff are experts in business strategy, entrepreneurship, marketing, finance and innovation and are actively involved in practice. They are happy to share their knowledge and might invite you to assist in their research. Besides this, our staff will use their network and help you connect to professional organisations and institutions that interest you.
Core lecturers of our programme include:
- Prof Niels Bosma, full professor Social Entrepreneurship. Niels is particularly interested in individuals’ entrepreneurial and innovative behaviour in regional and social contexts.
- Dr Katrin Merfeld, associate professor Marketing and Business Development. In practice, that means that Katrin:
- works with the EBS Impact Institute on research for the Weltladen-Dachverband - the oldest fair trade organisation in Germany. A task she also took on with students in her classroom - contributing to the development of the new marketing strategy.
- tries to make an impact at Utrecht University as the head of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) for our faculty, where she works with students and staff to make this a better place for all. Engagements as part of the programme board, the student association or the EDI working groups are always welcome!
- does research on what marketing nature means - especially when trying to address groups that are usually missing or marginalized. She does that as part of the NATURESCAPES and the ClimEx-PE project and offers thesis projects where you can apply your own marketing lense.
- Dr Friedemann Polzin, associate professor Entrepreneurship. Friedemann practices what he teaches in many forms.
- In his teaching, he integrates simulations using digital, open-source platforms. To jointly explore how companies actually impact the world, he works with the platform Upright - taking real-world data to the classroom.
- With a team from the Deep Transition Lab, he looks into the history and future of finance. You can have very interesting discussions with him on transformative investments to address the multiple sustainability crises we face.
- Friedemann is part of the board of the GRONEN Executive Board - a research network on organisations and the natural environment. He certainly has his finger on the pulse of the latest management research in sustainability and knows all the right people to talk to - or read about.
- Dr Helen Toxopeus, associate professor Entrepreneurship. Helen publishes in the field of business strategy, financing and sustainability, often asking questions regarding mechanisms and business models that can leverage/unlock funding towards sustainability purposes.
In this video Dr Friedemann Polzin explains how you can learn to achieve societal impact by combining business tools and the understanding of the economic and policy context.