Business schools found the European Scaleup Institute

Six renowned European business schools have launched the European Scaleup Institute (ESI). The initiative aims to support young companies in scaling up their business model.

It was founded by a consortium of the Otto Beisheim School of Management (Germany), Vlerick Business School (Belgium), Rotterdam School of Management and the Erasmus Center for Entrepreneurship (Netherlands), ESSEC Business School (France), ESADE Business School (Spain) and the Nova School of Business and Economics (Portugal). The new institute will receive additional support from Nordic Innovation, a venture of the Nordic Council of Ministers.

With the new institute, we want to expand our academic and business knowledge of what it takes for companies to follow a successful growth path.

Prof. Dr. Dries Faems, holder of the Chair of Entrepreneurship at WHU

The core task of the ESI is to pool expertise in the field of entrepreneurship. The aim is to use this knowledge to help young companies to scale up their business model on a large scale. The provision of practice-relevant research results, close interaction with experienced founders and the use of best-practice examples for constant growth should be directly applicable to the challenges faced by company founders. The aim is to create a central interface in Europe for knowledge about scaling companies.

Many newly founded companies fail at the transitions between the start-up, growth and scaling phases. The active science-based support provided by the ESI aims to lower these thresholds. The aim is to strengthen the European business location and European innovative strength.

The official launch date is June 1, 2023 at the Scaleup Conference at the Nova School of Business and Economics in Lisbon, Portugal.