Professor Welter gave the Schumpeter Lecture at the SME Assembly 2025

A plea in favor of "Everyday Entrepreneurship" was made by Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Friederike Welter at the SME Assembly 2025 in Copenhagen (Denmark) in mid-November as part of the Schumpeter Lecture "Innovation in Enterprise": "The research on this questions a distorted view of entrepreneurship, namely that only certain forms of entrepreneurship (can) lead to prosperity, innovation, growth and competitiveness. It is much more important to recognize the heterogeneity of entrepreneurship in order to develop better theories and recommendations for policy makers. After all, we should not forget that today's big companies started out as small companies."

The professor from Siegen also took part in the SME Competitiveness Panel. She not only highlighted the current challenges facing companies in Europe, but also explained how, for example, bureaucratic burdens could be reduced or avoided altogether in the future.

Prof. Dr. Friederike Welter is full-time President of the Institute for SME Research (IfM) Bonn and holds the professorship for Small and Medium Enterprise Management and Entrepreneurship at the University of Siegen. She conducts research in the field of SME and entrepreneurship research.