Selected from over 800 nominations, Univ.-Prof. Dr. Hannes Rothe received Germany’s highest distinction for university-based entrepreneurship and academic spin-off promotion.
We are proud to announce that DE-Hub Co-Founder Univ.-Prof. Dr. Hannes Rothe (Chair for Sustainability and Innovation in Digital Ecosystems at University of Duisburg-Essen, Board Member of GUIDE, and head of the Place Beyond Bytes co-creation lab) has been honored with the UNIPRENEURS Award 2026.
Under the patronage of Federal Research Minister Dorothee Bär and former Federal Minister Dr. Volker Wissing, UNIPRENEURS recognizes Germany's top 20 entrepreneurship professors out of more than 800 nominations who bridge academic research and deep-tech spin-offs. Earlier recognized among the "Young Stars of BWL" by WirtschaftsWoche, Prof. Rothe also co-hosted the 2026 KI-StartUp Festival and Science to Business Transfer Congress.
Research
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Martin Gersch and team expand digital health ecosystem research with EHDS4ALL, EHDA e.V., Data4Good, CaringS, and DiGA evaluation projects ReDiGe & EvalDiGe.
Research
European social entrepreneurship project AURORA seizmic develops AI-driven mentorship for student ventures, accompanied by new publications in EJIS (2025) and HICSS (2026).
Teaching
Prof. Dr. Janina Sundermeier and Univ.-Prof. Dr. Martin Gersch celebrate nearly four decades of Funpreneur, cross-university teaching with ESCP via Berlin InnoBridge, and NFUSION Women’s Entrepreneurship.