Foundation Modules

Two foundational modules provide the academic basis and a shared starting point for students from all disciplines. Across the first two semesters, you will build the core competencies needed to understand, design and drive innovation in diverse professional contexts. Through academic insights and real-world cases, participants learn how innovation emerges within markets, organizations, and institutional environments, and how entrepreneurial initiatives can transform ideas into impactful ventures.

The Foundation Modules will be conducted in the first half of the respective semester. In the second half of the semester, the students will apply the basics in the XP Labs. 
•    Semester 1: Foundations of Innovation
•    Semester 2: Foundations of Entrepreneurship

Foundations of Innovation:
Explore the mechanisms of innovation through different lenses

This module provides an interdisciplinary introduction to innovation across economics, management, law, sociology, and ethics. Students learn how innovations emerge and evolve within markets, organizations, and institutional settings. Using key concepts, empirical insights and real-world cases, the course highlights the economic, legal, cultural and ethical forces that shape innovation and its societal impact.

Foundations of Entrepreneurship:
Think and act like an entrepreneur

This module introduces essential entrepreneurial principles, strategic frameworks and research-based insights. Students develop an entrepreneurial mindset while learning about legal foundations, financial planning, team dynamics, entrepreneurial ecosystems and growth strategies. Through academic perspectives and practical tools, participants learn to make informed, science-based decisions and address real entrepreneurial challenges.

Dates
Blockdays before the first semester, regular classes on Friday afternoons in the first half of the semester. Please find more details in the UZH Course Catalogue.
 

Prof. Luis Aguiar (Module Responsibility for Foundations of Innovation)

Prof. Raphael Flepp (Module Responsibility for Foundations of Entrepreneurship)