Munich Business School is part of the Impact for Future initiative, which recently received government funding and seeks to anchor the topics of impact and social responsibility in the university landscape over the next four years.
Bernd Sibler, the Bavarian State Minister of Science and the Arts, has announced a new funding measure to help “students and academics to gain qualifications and become problem-solvers who think and act with entrepreneurial responsibility.” The beneficiaries will include Impact for Future, a joint initiative promoted by a consortium of Munich-based partners. The consortium comprises the Technical University of Munich, Munich University of Applied Sciences, Landshut University of Applied Sciences, Munich Business School (MBS) and the Universität der Bundeswehr München.
Impact for Future is a joint project that draws on Munich’s well-established tradition of impact-oriented entrepreneurship (IoE), a concept based on sustainable and social entrepreneurship. The project aims to close the gaps in IoE education, which is currently limited primarily to students in the humanities and social sciences. The partner institutions hope to develop a holistic teaching concept with the requisite breadth and depth to appeal to different target groups – from students of various subjects to teachers, staff and external actors – and meet their respective needs.
Munich Business School offers numerous best practices for developing a teaching concept as part of the “Impact for Future” project
Munich Business School will play an active part in this joint initiative. The notion of impact is firmly anchored in the university’s values of being innovative, responsible and globally-minded. As recently as the start of this year, the university published the first MBS Impact Report in an effort to raise awareness of universities’ responsibility to generate added value for society. Sustainable and social entrepreneurship are key focal points for Munich Business School, as evidenced by its Innovation and Entrepreneurship master’s program. Students on the program complete a mandatory module called Open & Sustainable Innovation, focus explicitly on the importance of sustainability while developing their business ideas in a module called Resource Acquisition & Business Planning, and can dive deeper into social entrepreneurship in an elective called Understanding Social Start-ups. Prof. Dr. Anne Tryba, Academic Director of the master’s program and a coordinator of the Impact for Future initiative at MBS, said:
“Students are increasingly engaging with this group of topics in seminar papers and their final thesis, such as by researching the transition to sustainable business models in SMEs.”
Yet, even away from the master’s program in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Munich Business School’s curricula feature a clear focus on impact at bachelor’s, master’s and MBA level. This includes the social project with a charitable organization in the MBS bachelor’s curriculum; the mandatory Conscious Business module for all master’s students, which examines entrepreneurship as a holistic construct, including its social aspects, and the focus on social entrepreneurship in the MBA flagship course Entrepreneurship & Innovation. When it comes to research, MBS professors are also engaging intensively with the topic of impact-oriented entrepreneurship through research projects including WEMag (Women Entrepreneurs in the Maghreb), EaSI (Technical Assistance for Social Finance Providers) and YES! (Young Entrepreneurs Succeed). In addition, the European Center for Social Finance (ECSF), led by social entrepreneurship expert Prof. Dr. Barbara Scheck, is also based at MBS. These elements and others will influence the development Impact for Future’s holistic teaching concept.
Kick-off event at Munich Business School
“For us as a university, participating in the Impact for Future project is another opportunity to develop closer connections in Munich’s entrepreneurship ecosystem and play an active role. We’re looking forward to strengthening our focus on impact and sustainable/social entrepreneurship through our work in the consortium and driving forward impact-oriented entrepreneurship education across Bavaria,” explained Prof. Dr. Stefan Baldi, Dean of Munich Business School, following the project’s successful launch.
As a kick-off event for the Impact for Future initiative, Munich Business School is organizing an Impact Pitch Night on April 28, 2022. The event will showcase the two best sustainable business ideas from each MBS entrepreneurship course at bachelor’s, master’s and MBA level, with the winners crowned by an expert jury. Following the pitches, students will have the opportunity to meet and exchange ideas with guests and partners from the MBS entrepreneurship ecosystem.
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