My research is oriented towards the early growth and development of technology-based firms, financing young ventures and university-industry relations. Over the years I have built up thorough experience of planning and implementation of different growth and development programs for technology-based firms.
Affiliation
- Full professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship
- Founding director of Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
- Vice president and member of the board of SMIL (Foundation for technology-based firms)
- Research leader at Helix Centre of Excellence
- Former research leader of AgoraLink Centre for researcher mobility and commercialisation of life science technologies
Research
PhD thesis defended in 1992 (industrial marketing); associate professor in 1996 and full professor in 2002 (innovation and entrepreneurship).
My 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.
Examples of current projects are:
- Newly started firms; what happens during early growth and development of a business and what factors contribute to their success.
- Incubators and science parks; how do these recruit entrepreneurs, talent, and firms.
- Academic entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial universities; what strategies and forms do they use to implement research, mobility, and support of entrepreneurial processes.
Over the years, I have founded or co-founded a number research organizations such as the Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (1994-), Helix Centre of Excellence (2005–2015), AgoraLink (2008–2012), and the Helix Competence Centre (2017–).
Independently, or together with others, I have applied for and received funding from the European Commission’s Targeted Socio-Economic Research (TSER) program, ECO-INNOVERA (EU); Marie Sklodowska Curie (EU), The Swedish Research Council; Formas and the Lundberg Foundation.
I publish regularly in various scientific journals.
Since entering the research field in the late 1980s, I have built up a large international network of researchers; to date, I have worked in 44 countries.
Teaching
At the beginning of my career, I taught marketing. After establishing the course “Entrepreneurship and New-Firm Start-Up” in 1993, my teaching activities almost solely concerned entrepreneurship-related topics. In 2009, I became responsible for CDIO-Entrepreneurship (3 ECTS), which 200 technologists attend annually.
Since 2006, I have been responsible for the PhD course “Entrepreneurship in Theory and Practice” (ETP, 7.5 ETCS), which attracts around 20 PhD students annually.
External activities
Throughout my academic career, I have participated in collaboration activities at the university, especially through SMIL (Business Development in Linköping) and the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE), which I helped found and am today involved with. Within these, I have helped develop numerous activities to support entrepreneurship in its different phases. These include the Entrepreneurship Program, the Development Program for Growth Firms, and various networking activities. In total, I have contributed to the start-up of over 500 firms. Over 400 firms have gone through the Development Program for Growth Firms, and many of these are now large, international companies. Firms often contact me to design and deliver contract training programs.
