Friederike Welter - Biography#

Since 2013, Friederike Welter is head of the Institut für Mittelstandsforschung (IfM) Bonn, a policy-oriented independent research institute on small business and entrepreneurship issues (www.ifm-bonn.org). She also holds a professorship at the University of Siegen and co-directs the School of Economic Disciplines’ SME Graduate School, a fast track interdisciplinary doctoral programme for master students. From 2008-2012, she was Professor and Associate Dean of Research at Jönköping International Business School in Sweden. Prior, she worked at the University of Siegen as professor (2004-2008) and at the RWI Essen, as senior researcher and later deputy head of the research group “Craft enterprises, small enterprises and entrepreneurship development” (1993-2006).

Friederike Welter has broad experiences in applied and policy-related research on entrepreneurship and small business, much of it in an international context. She has coordinated more than 30 national and international projects. Her main research interests are the diversity of entrepreneurship, gender and entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship policies, and contextualizing entrepreneurship. She is on the review board of several leading international academic journals. She co-edits a new book series for the publisher Edward Elgar on relevance and impact of entrepreneurship research. She also is Senior Editor of the leading journal “Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice”, since 2015. She has been on the journal's editorial review board (since 2002) and worked as associate editor (since 2009).

She is a member of several policy-related advisory boards for federal and state ministries in Germany and international bodies such as OECD. For her work on small business and entrepreneurship, she has received a number of international honours and awards. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung regularly lists her amongst the top 50 most influential economists in Germany.