The Entrepreneurship & Innovation section of the Amsterdam Business School (ABS) is looking for a PhD candidate for a research project about the impact of university-based incubation activities on the creation, growth, and performance of new startups and spinoffs as well their founders.

Project description

The main aim of this project is to study early investment in biotech entrepreneurial ventures, focusing on the signals of quality the entrepreneur and the venture can send and especially on the effects of how the entrepreneur or venture are categorized, in terms of industry, technology, goal of the product etc. - or categorize themselves.

The research will combine insights from management science, especially entrepreneurship and innovation, with those from categorisation theory, both in management science and in sociology, and apply a broad range of quantitative techniques, from network analysis to machine learning (esp. to analyse texts and images).

This PhD project is part of the recently approved ORGANOVIR project, which is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network within the EU Horizon 2020 program.

The overall project is a collaboration between researchers from the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Poland and Denmark. The lead of the overall project is with the Academic Medical Centre of the University of Amsterdam, most of these researchers are connected to (bio)medical departments who study innovative techniques and applications related to artificial organs; this subproject is the only one in management science.

The candidate is also expected to participate in some teaching activities related to innovation management and the research project.

The supervisors of this project will be Prof. Nachoem Wijnberg and Dr Balazs Szatmari.

The candidate should not have been residing or working in the Netherlands for more than 12 months in the last 3 years prior to the start of this project.

Besides the candidate should have:

• a Master’s degree in the area of management science, econometrics, economics, sociology, computer science, or a related discipline - if they can show that they have a serious interest and background, having followed relevant courses and/or minors, in management science and in quantitative methodology;
• excellent grades and a strong interest in quantitative research methods and/or statistics and/or artificial intelligence;
• the drive to publish in top-level academic journals in management science;
• well-developed analytical skills, strong organization and communication skills, an entrepreneurial mind set, and perseverance;
• the ability to work independently and to be proactive in developing the research project, sometimes in collaboration with colleagues from other countries and faculties;
• mastery of both written and spoken English.

Fixed-term contract: 4 years.

You will be appointed for 36 months with a possibility to extend it for another 12 months. You will be classified as PhD candidate (promovendus) in the Dutch University job-ranking system (UFO), in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities.

Preferred starting date: as soon as possible.

University of Amsterdam

With over 5,000 employees, 30,000 students and a budget of more than 600 million euros, the University of Amsterdam (UvA) is an intellectual hub within the Netherlands. Teaching and research at the UvA are conducted within seven faculties: Humanities, Social and Behavioural Sciences, Economics and Business, Law, Science, Medicine and Dentistry. Housed on four city campuses in or near the heart of Amsterdam, where disciplines come together and interact, the faculties have close links with thousands of researchers and hundreds of institutions at home and abroad.  

The UvA’s students and employees are independent thinkers, competent rebels who dare to question dogmas and aren’t satisfied with easy answers and standard solutions. To work at the UvA is to work in an independent, creative, innovative and international climate characterised by an open atmosphere and a genuine engagement with the city of Amsterdam and society.

Amsterdam Business School

The Amsterdam Business School (ABS) is one of the two schools of the University of Amsterdam’s Faculty of Economics and Business. The ABS has almost 3,000 students and the equivalent of 120 full-time academic staff. The school’s core subjects are Corporate Governance, Entrepreneurship, and Big Data / Business Analytics. Six sections (Accounting, Entrepreneurship & Innovation, Finance, Leadership & Management, International Strategy & Marketing, and Operations Management) conduct top-level research published in prestigious international journals. They also provide various degree programmes including a BSc programme and six MSc programmes, a wide range of post-doctoral programmes featuring three MBAs, four accountancy programmes and Lean Six Sigma programmes, as well as an extensive portfolio of open courses and in-company projects.