Christine Volkmann is head of the Chair of Entrepreneurship and Economic Development and holds the UNESCO Chair of Entrepreneurship and Intercultural Management at the Schumpeter School of Business and Economics at Wuppertal University. She is a director of the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovations Research (IGIF). In 2011 she initiated the foundation of the interdisciplinary Jackstädt Research Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and has had the function of the executive board spokeswoman since then. Since 2005 she is a regular visiting professor at the University of Economics and Business Administration (ASE) in Bucharest, Romania, where she designed and helped to establish the Advanced MBA program “Leadership and Innovation Management”. She has published numerous journal articles and textbooks and acts as a reviewer for scientific journals in the field of entrepreneurship. Christine Volkmann is member of the scientific advisory board of EFER (European Foundation for Entrepreneurship Research) and has worked as an advisor for various EU-organisations, the European Economic and Social Committee and the UNCTAD in the field of entrepreneurship. As member of the technical advisory group of the World Economic Forum for Education and Entrepreneurship she contributed to the publication of a report of the Global Education Initiative (Educating the Next Wave of Entrepreneurs, 2009). She is also a member of the judges for the EY award for the “Entrepreneur of the Year”.
David Audretsch is a Distinguished Professor and Ameritech Chair of Economic Development at Indiana University, where he is also serves as Director of the Institute for Development Strategies. He also is an Honorary Professor of Industrial Economics and Entrepreneurship at the WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management in Germany and a Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research in London.
Audretsch's research has focused on the links between entrepreneurship, government policy, innovation, economic development and global competitiveness. His books include Everything in its Place: The Strategic Management of Cities, Regions and States with Oxford University Press in 2015 and The Handbook of Local Competitiveness, also with Oxford University Press in 2015. He is co-founder and co-editor of Small Business Economics: An Entrepreneurship Journal. He was awarded the 2001 Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research by the Swedish Foundation for Small Business Research. In 2008 he received an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Augsburg, and in September, 2010 he received an honorary doctorate degree from Jonköping University. In 2011 he was awarded the Schumpeter Prize from the University of Wuppertal.
He is a member of the Advisory Board to a number of international research and policy institutes, including Chair of the the Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung Berlin (German Institute for Economic Analysis Berlin), Chairof the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft (Foundation for the Promotion of German Science), New York Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Entrepreneurship Forum, and the Jackstädt Centre for Entrepreneurship in Wuppertal, Germany.
