Starting in the Fall Semester 2026/27, students at the University of Zurich will be able to supplement their Master’s degree with the Minor Innovation & Entrepreneurship university-wide. Designed to equip students with key future skills, the program will cover innovation competence, problem-solving, entrepreneurial thinking and adaptability.
The three-semester minor program (30 ECTS) empowers students to recognize innovation potential, develop visions and solutions, and implement them sustainably. This creates a unique opportunity to develop future-oriented skills in an interdisciplinary setting, empowering individuals to proactively drive change and progress business and society.
The minor builds on the University of Zurich's (UZH) diversity as a comprehensive university, combining knowledge from the wide range of disciplines it offers. Instead of focusing on innovation & entrepreneurship from business or technological perspectives alone, the program incorporates theoretical fundamentals from disciplines such as psychology, sociology, economics, and law. This approach fosters a deep understanding of the sources of innovation, its mechanisms, and how it can be shaped in different contexts. At the same time, the minor creates a balanced connection between theory and practice. The involvement of experts from companies, startups, and the innovation ecosystem encourages students to apply theoretical concepts into real-world applications and build practical know-how. Interdisciplinary teamwork is an integral part of teaching entrepreneurial thinking, with students working together on challenge-based and/or start-up projects.
“The minor not only opens up the possibility for graduates to found their own startups, but also deliberately opens doors to career opportunities in dynamic and future-oriented industries and organizations,” explains Maria Olivares, Head of Innovation at the University of Zurich. “Innovation no longer arises solely in high-tech startups, but in all industries and organizations.”
This interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach of the Minor Innovation & Entrepreneurship stands for future-oriented learning with clear added value: students develop an interdisciplinary, adaptive understanding of innovation to translate insights from their respective subject contexts into impact-oriented solutions and to act responsibly in various professional fields. Whether as a manager in the corporate world, the innovation economy, the public or non-profit sector, or even as the founder of your own start-up, act as a visionary and develop innovations with a real impact.
The development of this three-semester minor program is based on an initiative by Vice President Research Elisabeth Stark. She sees the new minor as a decisive asset for UZH:
“The program is a strategically important step in advancing the teaching of innovation and entrepreneurship and embedding it early in academic education—it is a forward-looking impulse for the University of Zurich.”
