UNIPRENEURS honours academics for their commitment to entrepreneurship
Hannes Rothe receives award
- von Astrid Bergmeister
- 22.09.2026
Today, 22 September, UNIPRENEURS honoured Hannes Rothe, Professor of Sustainability and Innovation in Digital Ecosystems at the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE), for his commitment to entrepreneurship. The award was presented by Matthias Hauer, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space, and Johannes Steiniger, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. UNIPRENEURS honours particularly successful academics who actively encourage students to launch start-ups and turn ideas from academia into new ventures.
UNIPRENEURS aims to unlock the considerable potential of universities for spin-offs and thereby foster entrepreneurship. A distinguished advisory board selected 20 recipients of the 2026 UNIPRENEURS awards from more than 800 nominations submitted by founders from across Germany.
Professor Dr Barbara Albert, Rector of the University of Duisburg-Essen, is delighted by the recognition: “Professor Hannes Rothe not only leads a particularly innovative field of research, but as head of our incubator ‘Place Beyond Bytes’ he is also highly successful in supporting start-up projects from the initial idea through to launching a company. His UNIPRENEURS award is a great achievement for us as the University of Duisburg-Essen as well. We place a high priority on transfer and innovation, including through our work with partners from the Ruhr region in the BRYCK Startup Alliance.”
Rothe is an information systems scholar and heads one of the University of Duisburg-Essen’s two co-creation labs, Place Beyond Bytes. The lab supports start-ups with a focus on digital technologies. Researchers and students receive support in developing digital solutions for a sustainable future. The incubator complements Rothe’s academic work in research and teaching. His courses and mentoring activities have already given rise to AI-based solutions for inclusive recruitment, new diagnostic methods and automation solutions in logistics and the energy sector.
“Knowledge-intensive start-ups have always fascinated me because they often involve complex products that address major societal challenges. To connect researchers with the start-up ecosystem, I co-founded the Digital Entrepreneurship Hub in Berlin and the Postdocs-to-Innovators Network around ten years ago. Since then, we have developed initiatives funded at state and federal level to advance entrepreneurship education in deep tech,” says Rothe.
Federal Minister of Research, Technology and Space Dorothee Bär is one of the two patrons of UNIPRENEURS and outlines the initiative’s science-policy objective: “UNIPRENEURS strengthens start-up activity at German universities by raising the profile of the professors who play a key role in it. The individuals receiving the award make a major contribution to creating a culture of entrepreneurship at universities and, in doing so, provide important impetus for Germany’s innovative capacity and future competitiveness,” says Bär.
Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Katherina Reiche, also a patron of UNIPRENEURS, likewise recognises the professors’ achievements: “UNIPRENEURS represents the strong link between academic excellence and entrepreneurial courage at our universities. The professors receiving the award make an important contribution to the competitiveness of Germany as an innovation hub.”
About Professor Dr Hannes Rothe
Information systems scholar, Professor of Sustainability and Innovation in Digital Ecosystems, University of Duisburg-Essen
Rothe has been a professor at the University of Duisburg-Essen since 2023. He heads the co-creation lab “Place Beyond Bytes” and is a member of the board of the University of Duisburg-Essen’s Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innopreneurship (GUIDE). In 2024, WirtschaftsWoche named him one of its “Young Stars of BWL” (Business Administration).
He publishes his research in leading journals in information systems and strategic management and is a (co-)editor of several renowned academic journals. He has been a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge in the UK and Graz University of Technology in Austria. From 2013 to 2021, he coordinated the development of entrepreneurship education at Freie Universität Berlin. In 2017, together with partners from Cambridge, Paris and Innsbruck as well as international companies, he founded the Postdocs-to-Innovators Network and contributed to several initiatives funded at state and federal level to promote entrepreneurship education in deep tech. In 2021 and 2022, he was Associate Professor at the Grande École ICN Business School in Nancy, Paris and Berlin.
About UNIPRENEURS
UNIPRENEURS is an initiative aimed at strengthening university spin-offs in Germany. It was founded by Matthias Hilpert and Martin Schilling. Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft is responsible for organising and running the joint initiative. Startup-Verband, Bitkom and AddedVal.io support UNIPRENEURS as partners.
Every three years, UNIPRENEURS presents Germany’s highest recognition for outstanding commitment to entrepreneurship at universities. The Federal Minister of Research, Technology and Space and the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy jointly serve as patrons of UNIPRENEURS.
Pictured: Professor Hannes Rothe (centre) is presented with the award by Parliamentary State Secretary Matthias Hauer and Parliamentary State Secretary Johannes Steiniger.
You can find a photo gallery of the award ceremony at:
www.uni-due.de/aktuell/2026-09-22-bilderstrecke-unipreneurs-preisverleihung.php
Editor: Astrid Bergmeister, Press Spokesperson and Head of the Press Office, University of Duisburg-Essen, Email: presse@uni-due.de, Tel. +49 203 3792430