Project launch INSPIRE BW Hub-Tracing on June 1, 2025: Alumni start-ups in focus

Developed at the Institute of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Science (ENI) at the University of Stuttgart, the project aims to connect start-ups and spin-offs of university graduates with their respective alma mater universities within the INSPIRE BW Hubs.

Challenge: migration and data gaps

Many alumni set up companies years after graduating, often far away from their place of study. It has been almost impossible for universities and funding initiatives to systematically track these start-ups. There is also a lack of a standardised definition of start-ups and consistent, automated data collection procedures. Manual research in alumni management is time-consuming and incomplete, which makes a comparable evaluation of start-up activities and the identification of success stories and role models more difficult.

Solution approach: DEEM as a data-based foundation

The DEEM (Dynamic Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Monitoring) project, which emerged at the ENI from the Gründermotor state initiative, forms the methodological basis for INSPIRE BW Hub Tracing. DEEM combines structured company data (including industry, business model, team structure, financing) with individual career paths and links these with the regional context. The data comes from a variety of sources - including commercial registers, web scraping, national statistical data and an annual panel survey - and is updated regularly.

This approach is being rolled out across Germany for INSPIRE BW hub tracing. To ensure high data quality, manual control mechanisms will be integrated into the automated survey. A close interface between the DEEM project and the INSPIRE BW Hubs ensures the validation of the data and guarantees its applicability for universities, ministries and funding organisations.

Added value: comparability, transparency and evidence for start-up funding

INSPIRE BW Hub Tracing enables universities in the INSPIRE BW Hubs and the INSPIRE BW Hubs themselves to track and visualise alumni start-ups in the long term. At the same time, policymakers benefit from structured, comparable data for the further development of start-up support in Baden-Württemberg.

Further information on the DEEM project can be found on the website.

You can find an insight into the data collection processes in a current research article.