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Profile

President - Managing director Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Friederike Welter

Since 2013, Prof. Dr. Friederike Welter, Member of Academia Europaea (MAE), is head of the Institut für Mittelstandsforschung (IfM) in Bonn (Germany), a policy-oriented independent research institute on small business and entrepreneurship issues (https://www.ifm-bonn.org/en/). She is also professor of Business Administration, esp. SME Management and Entrepreneurship at the University of Siegen.

Friederike Welter has broad experiences in applied and policy-related research on entrepreneurship and small business, much of it in an international context. She is a member of several policy-related advisory boards for federal and state ministries and for international bodies in Germany.

She was President of the European Council for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (2007-2009). For her work on small business and entrepreneurship, the economist received an honorary doctorate from the University of Glasgow in 2023 and was appointed as menber to the Ludwig Erhard Foundation. In 2021, she has been invited to become a member of Academia Europaea in 2021 and has been elected to the prestigious circle of 21st Century Entrepreneurship Research Fellows in 2020 and received the Greif Research Impact Award in 2017. She also has been honoured as Wilford L. White Fellows of the International Council of Small Business (ICSB, 2014) and as ECSB Fellow (2011).

Scientific vita