In another Waterloo first, the Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business (Conrad) will launch Canada’s first PhD program in Entrepreneurship and Organization this fall. Conrad has long been a programmatic innovator in entrepreneurship education, having launched the country’s first immersive entrepreneurship graduate program 20 years ago, and a suite of undergraduate entrepreneurship courses and programs.
Unlike traditional business school doctoral programs that focus on management and organizations, Conrad’s new PhD takes a different approach. Instead, it offers students the opportunity to rigorously study human behaviour and organization with a focus on entrepreneurial contexts. “Faculty at Conrad know those contexts both matter and can differ in important ways from the traditional view,” says Mark Weber, Director of the Conrad School. “This new approach to a doctoral program in this domain is both novel and exciting.”
“Waterloo is by far the most successful entrepreneurship university in Canada. We have the biggest university incubator, one of the most successful accelerators in the world. It just makes sense that scholars of entrepreneurship should be trained in this ecosystem, studying what UW does so well,” adds Shavin Malhotra, the first Director for the new program.
This new doctoral program, and the scholars it will train, will further cement Waterloo’s position as Canada’s leading innovation university. “Building upon Waterloo’s rich history of entrepreneurship and its growing start-up ecosystem, the PhD in Entrepreneurship and Organization is another important step towards empowering our community to uncover innovative solutions that will change the world for the better.” says Vivek Goel, Waterloo’s President and Vice-Chancellor.