Democracy & Entrepreneurship

30 October 2024

Entrepreneurship has been claimed to matter and deserve priority because it has been linked to some of the most compelling economic and social issues of our time. It is also inextricably linked to a fundamental value common among the western developed economies, democracy. Democracy constrains unbridled power by legacy companies, organizations and governments, which in turn, can suppress entrepreneurship. An important policy mandate for entrepreneurship may be to ensure the independent, decentralised and autonomous decision-making serving as a cornerstone of democracy.

Visiting Research Fellowship Professor David Audretsch is a Distinguished Professor and Ameritech Chair of Economic Development at Indiana University, where he also serves as Director of the Institute for Development Strategies.

Professor Audretsch’s views on this topic are informed by decades of research focussing on the links between entrepreneurship, government policy, innovation, economic development, and global competitiveness.

His credentials include coauthorship of The Seven Secrets of Germany published by Oxford University Press. He is founder and editor-in-chief of Small Business Economics: An Entrepreneurship Journal. He was recognized as a Clarivate Citation Laureate in 2021 and awarded the Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research by the Swedish Foundation for Entrepreneurship.

In 2024 he was ranked as the leading living scholar in the world for business and management and the sixth leading living scholar in the world for economics and finance. He has received honorary doctorate degrees from the University of Augsburg, Jonköping University, and the University of Siegen. Audretsch also was awarded the Schumpeter Prize from the University of Wuppertal.

Supported under the Seeley International Visiting Research Fellowship scheme,

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