A number of Entrepreneurship Centers can be found across the various Schools at the University. Each of these Centers shares a common goal: to catalyze entrepreneurial efforts among students, alumni, faculty, and staff, both on and beyond Grounds. In alphabetical order, these Centers would be:
Batten Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation
Darden School of Business. The Batten Institute seeks to improve society by creating knowledge about the transformative power of entrepreneurship and innovation and by cultivating principled, entrepreneurial leaders. The Institute was created in 1996 through the visionary support of Frank Batten, Sr. (Col, '50), former chairman and CEO of Landmark Communications and co-founder of the WeatherChannel along with his children, Frank Batten, Jr. (MBA '84) and Dorothy Neal Batten (MBA '90). Today, the Batten Institute encompasses a word-class research center, focused on academic scholarship, as well as Darden's Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership and the W.L. Lyons Brown III i.Lab, focused on the growth of our innovative and entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Galant Center for Entrepreneurship
McIntire School of Commerce. The Galant Center was founded in 2008, through the initial funding of Mark E. Galant (McIntire '80). Our mission is to encourage, educate, and empower students—past and present—to take on crucial roles in the new venture community, thereby impacting positively the world in which we live and creating value of all kinds. We develop and support courses (e.g., the Startup class), competitions (e.g., The Galant Challenge), events (e.g., Founders’ Perspectives), experiences (e.g., startup treks), and student initiatives (e.g., HackCville, Virginia Venture Fund) in an effort to catalyze entrepreneurial activity not only within the McIntire School, but also across and beyond the Grounds of the University of Virginia.
Licensing and Ventures Group
The U.Va. Licensing & Ventures Group’s mission is to reinvigorate and grow the University's intellectual property and business development pipeline by implementing a new business model, financial model, and revenue distribution formula; by integrating into the existing translational research programs at the University, and by increasing engagement of faculty, staff and students. This mission operates within the University's larger charter so Strengthen the University’s capacity to advance knowledge and serve the Commonwealth of Virginia, the nation, and the world through research, scholarship, creative arts and innovation.
Social Entrepreneurship
Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Virginia creates opportunities for students to learn about social entrepreneurship through experiential classes, workshops, speakers, hackathons, concept competitions, research positions, Global Field Experiences and internships. Social Entrepreneurs are committed to solving the major challenges facing the planet today. They take innovative and creative approaches to develop sustainable solutions to a range of problems from poverty, malnutrition, and homelessness and to lack of access to education, health care and dignified work. Those solutions may take the form of innovative financially-sustainable non-profits, world changing for-profits, or a range of hybrid models in between, including innovative financing like venture philanthropy, social impact bonds, public-private partnerships and impact investing. Often real system-change requires collaboration across sectors, this is the focus of the SE@UVA Research Hub for Collaborative Innovation. SE@UVA is logistically housed at the Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy however the minor, classes and events are open to all students from any School at the University of Virginia.
Technology Entrepreneurship
School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Inventor. The mission of the Entrepreneurship and Business programs in the School of Engineering and Applied Science is to enable every engineering student to have the opportunity to integrate entrepreneurial and business studies into their technical degree programs. The Pike Engineering Entrepreneurship Fellows Program (Pike Fellows Program) provides support, guidance, and mentorship for early-stage University of Virginia student entrepreneurial projects that are based on developing or commercializing some form of novel technology by leveraging the existing resources of the surrounding UVA/Charlottesville network. Works in Progress is a community of students across the university who are pursuing an entrepreneurial project (a startup, a non-profit, a new device, a new club, etc).