BOOST 2: Building Opportunities and Outcomes through Scholarly Teamwork

Jun 30, 2026 - 15:00

On 13–14 April 2026, we had the opportunity to host the second edition of the 2-day BOOST — Building Opportunities for Sustained Growth and Transformation — at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. This event was supported by the European Council for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ECSB) and organized by Dr. Daria Hakola and Dr. Mari Suoranta from the Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics.

BOOST 2 was designed as a development-focused gathering bringing together nearly 30 participants across career stages — from doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers to senior scholars and journal editors — as well as two entrepreneur-executives with doctoral backgrounds, underscoring the event’s commitment to bridging academic and industry perspectives.

Participants of BOOST2 workshop — *Participants of BOOST 2 workshop*

An Intensive and Rewarding Two-Day Programme

The BOOST 2 programme was carefully crafted to offer participants multiple layers of scholarly development and genuine community building:

Opening and Keynote Sessions: The workshop was formally opened by university leadership before a series of thought-provoking academic keynotes set an intellectually ambitious tone, challenging participants to reflect on entrepreneurial ecosystems and the shifting global context for entrepreneurship research.
Meet the Editors Sessions: Held across both days, these sessions brought together editorial representatives from six leading journals in the field, giving participants — particularly early-career researchers — direct access to editorial insights and guidance on manuscript development.
GEM Global Entrepreneurship Insights: A dedicated session on the latest global entrepreneurship trends supported discussion on their implications for current and future research agendas.
Industry Keynotes: Business practitioners offered candid perspectives from the field, sharing experiences of growth, strategy, and the journey from research-based innovation to high-growth enterprise.
Paper Development Roundtables: Senior scholars provided structured, constructive feedback on participants’ ongoing research in a collegial and supportive setting — a highlight for many attendees.
Industry–University Collaborative Workshop: The second afternoon brought academics and business guests together in open dialogue on research–practice collaboration, reflecting BOOST’s commitment to bridging these two worlds.
Networking and Community Building: From the opening lunch to the conference dinner, ample space was created for participants to exchange ideas, build relationships, and explore future collaborations.

The months of planning and preparation proved invaluable as we witnessed vibrant discussions, meaningful feedback exchanges, and genuine connections forming across career stages and institutional boundaries.

Inspirational Insights from Renowned Speakers

BOOST 2 was privileged to welcome two outstanding keynote speakers whose contributions set the intellectual tone for the entire workshop.

Professor Christina Theodoraki opened the academic programme with a compelling exploration of entrepreneurial ecosystems in times of change, examining how coordination, adaptation, and growth dynamics are being reshaped in an increasingly complex and uncertain environment. Her talk offered both theoretical depth and practical relevance, resonating strongly with researchers across career stages.

Professor Kim Klyver brought a thought-provoking perspective on entrepreneurship in a poly-crisis world, making a compelling case for why context matters more than ever in entrepreneurship research. His keynote challenged participants to reconsider their research assumptions and embrace the messy, interconnected realities that entrepreneurs navigate every day.

TOP 5 Key Takeaways

Entrepreneurial ecosystems cannot be studied in isolation — they require a holistic, interdisciplinary and multi-level approach that connects macro, meso, and micro dynamics rather than focusing on single actors or phenomena.
The field is at a critical juncture: contextual turbulence — including wars, health crises, inflation, democratic backsliding, and technological acceleration — demands that research move from studying isolated phenomena to understanding interconnected systems.
Top-down and bottom-up approaches must meet: macroeconomic models risk abstracting away implementation realities, while purely local perspectives miss structural forces — researchers need to bridge both.
Our research must evolve methodologically, embracing mixed methods, machine learning, web scraping, and generative AI to study ecosystems with truly ecosystemic methods.
Inclusiveness and sustainability are no longer optional additions to entrepreneurship thinking — they are central pillars of what makes ecosystems function and endure over time.
Future research agendas should tackle the dark side of ecosystems, the role of ethics in AI and entrepreneurship, and the risks of elite capture and exclusion in ecosystem governance.
Researchers should ask themselves: are their models truly capturing the multi-level complexity of the phenomena they study, and how can their work contribute to inclusive, systemic transformation?