Cluster focus

The goal of INSITE is to foster and expand technology entrepreneurship research and to facilitate curriculum and program development related to technology entrepreneurship.  The cluster supports technology and entrepreneurship research in areas of business, agricultural economics and law.  Current research areas include management origins of entrepreneurial activity; financial evaluation of startup companies; marketing concepts in e-commerce; high-tech applications; and the regulatory and legal environment.  The cluster has also created new key credit courses and important outreach efforts to students across the campus and to the community.

Cluster accomplishments

  • The cluster has developed a new PhD minor for non-business students focusing on scholarly research on entrepreneurship. Through regular doctoral seminars, courses and directed readings, this program builds breadth and expertise in theoretical and empirical work on new firm creation, innovation and related topics.
  • INSITE faculty frequently publish research findings in top scholarly peer-reviewed journals (with acceptance rates often below 10%). Recent articles by INSITE faculty appear in the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Finance, Journal of Agricultural Economics and UCLA Law Review. Cluster faculty often serve as editors for these publications.
  • Cluster faculty seed new areas of scholarship. For example, cluster faculty played an important role in convening nationally recognized faculty shaping the emerging area of law and entrepreneurship.
  • Cluster faculty have developed and offer several new credit courses in entrepreneurial finance, law, management and agricultural economics.
  • The cluster has a World Affairs and Global Economy (WAGE) grant to explore how organizational contexts influence technology entrepreneurship and how efforts to encourage entrepreneurship may have unintended outcomes.
  • The cluster executes the G. Steven Burrill Technology Business Plan Competition, a competition hosted by the School of Business, the College of Engineering, and the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. The competition involves multiple student teams, each of which typically includes at least two students with different academic backgrounds.
  • The cluster has been successful in connecting with the Madison business community. More than 80 law firms, former entrepreneurs and other business leaders have been involved in cluster-related activities contributing key insights.
  • Each semester, the cluster offers both academic and a policy/practice lecture series.  These bring in six or seven guest presenters from other universities, the business sector, industry and government. In addition, some workshop sessions feature presentations by entrepreneurs who are in the process of exciting new projects.

Cluster structure

The cluster serves as the core faculty for INSITE, which also attracts affiliated faculty from across campus to work on technology entrepreneurship. The cluster coordinator and INSITE director meet weekly and the coordinator meets individually on a regular basis with the cluster faculty. Cluster faculty also routinely discuss programming and other business related to the cluster. An advisory group consisting of the deans of the School of Business, the College of Engineering, the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, the Law School, and key faculty who have a vested interest in the cluster meets periodically to talk about major decisions such as large grant applications or hiring issues.

Cluster coordinator, faculty and lead dean

Cluster Coordinators

Cluster Faculty

Lead Dean