Professor Hiram Kümper

Current position at the University of Mannheim:
Holder of the Chair of History of the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age

Focus:
Innopreneurship certificate program

ENGAGE.EU team:
Engaged in Society

What are your current areas of responsibility?
Together with colleagues from the Center for Teacher Education and Educational Innovation (ZLBI) and the Mannheim Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (MCEI), I am developing the “Cultural Innopreneurship” program, a bilingual certificate program that brings together culture, an entrepreneurial mindset and the innovation potential of both areas. From 2023 on, students and employees of the university but also external participants, e.g. from cultural organizations, will be able to attend the first courses. This is part of “ENGAGED in Society”, a subproject of ENGAGE that makes use of the University of Mannheim’s strength to connect with society and further develops this strength by collaborating with our European sparring partners.

In your opinion, what are the most important goals of ENGAGE.EU?
The ENGAGE.EU universities capture the European sound that we have been producing for a long time and make it even louder. In our program, these efforts will be combined and further developed. The best thing is: If we do everything right, the result will not be compared to a carefully designed English garden but to a beautiful biotope – if we take good care of it and leave space for some rank growth.

What motivates you?
Being a mediator between various disciplines is what fascinates me most about the new certificate program. Culture can learn a lot from the economy, and vice versa. For quite some time now, we have successfully been implementing this idea in our bachelor’s and master’s programs in Culture and Economy. The new program for continuing education is the logical next step: We also think of the time post-graduation and the professional career. In the new certificate program, people from cultural organizations will learn how to start a business, students in Business Administration will get to know the structures of the cultural sector and together, they will look for potential to change cultural institutions. ENGAGE.EU enables real knowledge transfer between universities and the cultural sector.

What does it mean for the University of Mannheim to be a part of ENGAGE.EU?
With ENGAGE.EU, the University of Mannheim will become a regional center that connects Europe. The international collaboration of the partners strengthens the institutions and societal groups that are involved. Until now, we had individual projects that were ploughing a lone furrow. ENGAGE.EU helps us to join forces on the university level.

For more information on the “Cultural Innopreneurship” certificate program, please see: https://www.uni-mannheim.de/newsroom/presse/pressemitteilungen/2021/februar/zertifikatsprogramm-innopreneurship/