More advice for young entrepreneurs

Every day, the CSE Lab helps students realising their business start-up dreams. And several universities in Copenhagen have indicated their interest in CSE. Right now students are standing in line to get advice from the CSE in terms of economy, networking, target groups and strategy. And the start-up companies have to be able to draw on researchers’ knowledge to an even greater extent.

CSE needs more CBS
Mette Mønsted, Professor at the Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy has been a key figure in the establishment of CSE in 2009, but is now stepping down from her role. Sven Bislev, Associate Professor at the Department of Intercultural Communication and Management and Vice Dean of Education, will take over Mette Mønsted’s position. He wishes to focus on bringing CSE even closer to CBS’ research and researchers.

- I want to concentrate my efforts on strengthening the liaison between CSE and the researchers of CBS. We have vast experience in teaching lecturers at CBS, and we are going to use that experience. CSE has created practice and student activities, but needs to get closer to the researchers and their resources, says Sven Bislev. He points towards the programme ‘Train the Trainers’, which has produced great results by preparing lecturers to encourage students to start their own businesses within everything from health to computer science. The students have received guidance in integrating cases in their teaching activities by, for instance, commercialising a patent or an invention.

- Naturally, my other focus will be on the organisation of the entire field of entrepreneurship at CBS, which is going to be organised in a way that creates synergy with other initiatives within entrepreneurship, says Sven Bislev and refers to the new CBS Entrepreneurship Platform, the future entrepreneurship professorship, and CIEL - the entrepreneurship collaboration with the University of Copenhagen and the Technical University of Denmark. Add to this the numerous courses offered in innovation and entrepreneurship, which have been developed at CBS, for instance the new BSc in entrepreneurship.

Content vice dean says goodbye
The demand for entrepreneurship advice shows that CSE has succeeded in getting students tuned in on the ‘CSE entrepreneurship mindset’. It is based on how knowledge is transformed into a company or innovation – how knowledge can be used in practice, says Mette Mønsted. She still hopes that the collaboration with CBS’ researchers can be strenghtened.

- CSE will still contribute practice and access to entrepreneurship experience in order to improve the students’ entrepreneurial skills. It is, however, important to focus on research to take things a step further, to contribute more than consultancy and rules of thumb in terms of entrepreneurship, says Mette Mønsted. She explains the strength of CSE:

- Compared to similar places in the world, the interest from the students is bigger here and there are far more activities. CSE is Europe’s best. The centre’s strength is the mobilisation of interdisciplinary groups, targeted sparring in relation to idea and business development, contact to relevant networks in the business community and access to capital. All of those are great bases for creating growth, says Mette Mønsted.

Contact: vicedean Sven Bislev sb.ikl@cbs.dk or manager at CSE Karina Rothoff kr.lpf@cbs.dk