Professor Friederike Welter calls for a broader understanding of entrepreneurship during her 2025 Schumpeter ‘Innovation in Enterprise’ Lecture

At the European Commission’s flagship SME Assembly 2025, Europe’s premier forum for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), participants gathered to exchange ideas on how to strengthen entrepreneurship, sustainability, and innovation across the continent. Among the highlights was this year’s Schumpeter ‘Innovation in Enterprise’ Lecture, delivered by Professor Dr. h.c. Friederike Welter MAE, one of Europe’s leading voices on entrepreneurship and SME policy.

Professor Welter heads the Institut für Mittelstandsforschung (IfM) Bonn, Germany’s leading independent research institute focused on small business and entrepreneurship policy, and is Professor of Business Administration at the University of Siegen. With decades of applied and policy-oriented research experience, she has coordinated more than 30 national and international projects and advises several German federal and state ministries, as well as international organisations such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The annual Schumpeter ‘Innovation in Enterprise’ Lecture, which honours economist Joseph Schumpeter and his theory of “creative destruction,” invites participants to reflect on the forces driving innovation, disruption, and renewal in Europe’s economy. This year’s edition took place at Industriens Hus, the headquarters of Danish Industry (DI) in the heart of Copenhagen.

During her lecture, Professor Welter called for a renewed focus on what she described as “everyday entrepreneurship” - the entrepreneurship of the many, representing 99% of Europe’s businesses. “Today’s standard model of entrepreneurship celebrates the exceptional few but neglects the majority,” she said, urging policymakers and educators to recognise the diversity of Europe’s entrepreneurial landscape.

“Don’t we need to value all entrepreneurship in our turbulent and uncertain times?” she asked, stressing that Europe’s competitiveness depends not only on high-growth start-ups, but also on the smaller, locally rooted firms that contribute to regional resilience, social cohesion, and sustainable development.

Professor Welter argued that innovation takes many forms, not just radical technological breakthroughs. “Not every innovation is radical and pathbreaking. Not every innovation is patented,” she said, pointing instead to the incremental, social, and process innovations driven by SMEs and family businesses across Europe.

In addressing policymakers, Professor Welter encouraged a shift away from ‘picking winners’ toward creating enabling conditions for all forms of entrepreneurship. “Everyday enterprises are neither little big businesses nor laggard fast-growth businesses – they are enterprises in their own right,” she affirmed.

She also invited Europe’s universities and educational institutions to foster a stronger entrepreneurial culture that values diversity, collaboration and experimentation, bridging the gap between research, teaching, and practice.

Closing her lecture, Professor Welter circled back to Joseph Schumpeter, suggesting that he “could have related to our discussion around everyday entrepreneurship - those ventures and entrepreneurs that are still less visible but contribute in so many ways to making our economies more competitive and our societies more resilient.”

The Schumpeter ‘Innovation in Enterprise’ Lecture has been a highlight of the SME Assembly since 2012, honouring leading economists and thinkers who advance our understanding of innovation and enterprise.

🎥 A full recording of the 2025 Schumpeter ‘Innovation in Enterprise’ Lecture by Professor Friederike Welter is available here.

📸 Photos from the lecture are available here.