The Kummer College of Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Development puts discoveries into practice through a powerful combination of technological problem-solving and business acumen. We prepare graduates to forge a brighter future for society through hands-on education, interdisciplinary research, and robust collaborations across Missouri S&T and in the communities we serve.

Kummer College will achieve success and international prominence by turning knowledge into economic impact that will empower the private and public sectors, building a sustainable and prosperous future emanating from the heart of the Midwest.

Our community of students, faculty, staff, and key partners are collaborative and curious.
Our approach to learning and discovery is interdisciplinary and innovative.
Together we seek solutions that make our economy and our communities resilient and sustainable.

To accomplish our mission and fulfill our vision, Kummer College is committed to achieving the following three interrelated goals over the next five years, all of which are based on the 3C’s of the entrepreneurial mindset developed by the Kern Family Foundation – curiosity, creating value, and connections. This plan focuses on achieving three goals:

Make curiosity and innovation hallmarks of our transformational learning and research

The curiosity that drives our faculty, staff, and students is central to our institutional ethos. We innovate across our degree programs enabling our students to develop actionable leadership and management workforce-ready skills through robust hands-on, project-based learning. Our culture of informed risk-taking supports our commitment to fostering innovation. This process of discovery is led by our Kummer College faculty and enriched through interdisciplinary collaborations across Missouri S&T. To accomplish this goal our faculty, staff, and students will:

  • Deliberately designing pedagogies and learning experiences associated with specific teaching modalities, including in-person, synchronous, and asynchronous approaches.
  • Appropriately using artificial intelligence (AI) to support our curriculum design and our approach to teaching and student learning.
  • Embracing critical thinking and problem solving by including ambiguity and complexity in our approach to student learning.
  • Developing interdisciplinary learning teams that enable work across disciplines within Kummer College and throughout Missouri S&T.
  • Encouraging and supporting ongoing faculty professional development efforts that evolve and innovate curricula and pedagogies.
  • Creating value through successfully embedding innovation principles based on the latest research into our coursework throughout all of our programs.
  • Concentrating problem-solving techniques on developing alternative solutions and focusing on understanding the policy implications and inherent tradeoffs between the choices.
  • Creating sustainable connections to industry and organizations to identify the challenges aligned with our research and expertise and to determine how our students and faculty can contribute to solutions.
  • Using the learning and research from our students’ participation in interdisciplinary capstone Team Innovation Projects (TIPs) to enhance our teaching.
  • Collaborating with Missouri S&T to create a central campus hub for interdisciplinary student and faculty research.
  • Enhancing entrepreneurial curation to support student and faculty startups.
  • Organizing workshops/presentations and creating a knowledge base that can be used in our teaching around innovation-supported successful startups.
  • Developing an entrepreneurial mindset in students through the content of our courses and the student experience from hands-on learning projects and the connections with our successful alumni.
  • Hiring new faculty and supporting existing faculty who have an innovative/entrepreneurial mindset and who focus on a broad array of research and scholarship that provides value to organizations and businesses.
  • Recognizing and rewarding entrepreneurial activities in the promotion and tenure process.
  • Creating an environment within Kummer College and Missouri S&T that enhances the entrepreneurial mindset by recognizing that both technical and business hypotheses must be tested and that the resulting knowledge informs and encourages continued project development.

Create value and solve complex problems through an entrepreneurial mindset

Kummer College supports initiators and doers in their startups, in established organizations, and in their communities. Kummer College students, faculty, staff, and alumni will be foundational to these efforts as initiators and founders, and our rich network of companies will attract people and investment. To achieve this, we must bring an entrepreneurial mindset, a commitment to value creation, and a strong foundation in the ethical and social implications of technology to our teaching, our research, and to the practices and structures that shape Kummer College. By doing so, we create and expand an entrepreneurial ecosystem that fosters start-up activity across Missouri S&T and attracts 21st-century industries and organizations to our region. To accomplish this goal, we will:
  • Initiating and supporting research directly related to value creation and technology commercialization.
  • Emphasizing and communicating the commercial value of our research projects that focus on facilitating various forms of research/technology transfer and their application within entrepreneurial and innovation settings.
  • Engaging top scholars, practitioners, and ecosystem stakeholders who can share their entrepreneurship-related knowledge and experiences with our community members and partners via appropriate modalities.
  • Developing and using interesting, applicable, and insightful entrepreneurship studies to attract and retain industrial partners, community entrepreneurs, and external investors.
  • Building and developing critical entrepreneurial mindset skills across all of our learning activities that encourage interdisciplinary interaction and collaboration.
  • Rewarding creativity and experimentation within all learning activities, research, and programs within Kummer College.
  • Using the freshman curriculum, Kummer Student Programs, Badges of Entrepreneurial Excellence, student competitions, and similar programs as examples of how to integrate the entrepreneurial mindset into Kummer College culture.
  • Increasing student awareness of undergraduate minors and graduate certificates, along with providing advice on which programs are best for their future endeavors.
  • Rewarding and encouraging students, faculty, and staff to participate with new ventures, such as Protoplex and Bioplex affiliated activities, Missouri S&T research centers, TTED-led accelerators, and other startup activities.
  • Ensuring a vigorous campus environment by inviting distinguished guests to Missouri S&T who demonstrate entrepreneurial commitment to meet and work with our students and faculty.
  • Increasing the number of faculty and students involved in Founder Sessions and the Miner Founder Match.
  • Supporting and encouraging entrepreneurial creation by our students, faculty, staff, and alumni and connecting them with our external partners that engage them in founder activity and entrepreneurship.
  • Developing, through faculty input and governance, promotion and tenure incentives that reflect the addition and recognition of entrepreneurship teaching, research, and outreach.
  • Providing the opportunity for sabbaticals to work with established companies or participate in startup company activities.
  • Communicating the commitment to “adoptability” as a fundamental attribute of a successful entrepreneurial venture in transformational technologies.
  • Highlighting the varied journeys and types of entrepreneurs.

Connect and partner widely to foster economic development

Built on the efforts and expertise of our students, faculty, and staff, we stimulate economic development across our region through highly effective collaborations between Kummer College, Missouri S&T, businesses, and the communities we serve. Kummer College is a nexus with the entrepreneurial community, connecting talent with opportunities, capital, and discoveries at Missouri S&T. We serve as a hub providing the management, economic, and regulatory understanding needed to spur growth and add value grounded in an ethical and public interest framework for the benefit of people and organizations throughout our region and beyond. To accomplish this goal, we will:

  • Producing framing information on the workforce needs and development to be seen as a thought leader (e.g., STEM Workforce Needs 2026: Blue Collar and AI).
  • Increasing the use of Team Innovation Projects (TIPs) to connect Missouri S&T faculty and students with companies, both regional and beyond.
  • Supporting students participating in Professional Masters programs that encourage student and company interactions through TIPs, internships, senior design projects with community partners, and other experiential learning experiences.
  • Engaging in ongoing interaction between faculty and regional economic development organizations—such as the Center for Business and Economics Research, Small Business Development Center, Meramec Regional Planning Commission, MU Extension, Chamber of Commerce, and industry associations—to facilitate positive and fruitful connections.
  • Increasing the involvement of community-engaged student organizations, such as the Entrepreneurial Student Society.
  • Developing and implementing student/community interactions, such as startup competitions, Entrepreneurs in Residence, and community needs/survey projects.
  • Developing and implementing student research projects leading to entrepreneurial activity.
  • Increasing the quality and numbers of our faculty and students focused on creating and participating in our innovation ecosystem hub and engaging with external stakeholders.
  • Implementing new and innovative academic STEM-based programs with current and new faculty and staff.
  • Increasing philanthropic dollars to support our hub and economic development activities.
  • Developing and implementing policies that increase faculty flexibility and efficiently enhance their capacity.
  • Creating agile organizations, where appropriate, within Kummer College and Missouri S&T to enhance our ability to respond to customer needs, such as utilizing entrepreneurial structures including incubators and venture studios, whether within or external to Missouri S&T.
  • Establishing and supporting faculty ad hoc affiliation groups based on thematic areas connected to innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic development.
  • Increasing marketing, social media, and web presence focused on community economic development and Kummer College’s and Missouri S&T’s role in supporting this critical area.
  • Designing and building a new Kummer College infrastructure, including renovations, a TIP office suite, active-learning classrooms, venture studios, resident corporate offices, and an attractive signature facility.
  • Creating opportunities for students to be part of existing student clubs or existing/new centers to assist startups that can serve as a Kummer College Entrepreneurial Clinic with a broad reach across counties in our vicinity.
  • Creating student scout teams, clinic teams, or crucibles associated with a corporate partnership expert and/or assigned to Kummer Research Centers.
  • Using AI and analytics to enable stakeholders to visualize opportunities and growth patterns both locally and throughout our extended networks, and showcasing the strengths of Kummer College faculty and staff via events/exhibitions organized on campus.
  • Creating a hub (e.g., The Rolla Loop monthly convening event) that interacts with the community and results in effective communications and decision-making regarding allocation of university resources, researcher/collaborator proposals, student and alumni networks, the innovation ecosystem, intellectual property, and licensing.
  • Developing and implementing opportunities for the local and regional non-STEM business base and workforce to benefit from the innovation economy through workforce education and exposure to new business opportunities.
  • Creating high-touch experiential learning opportunities for a workforce with varying degrees of education to see themselves in, and benefit from, the innovation economy.
  • Developing new programs to facilitate collaborations and partnerships that benefit the local/regional economy, such as TIPs, certification programs, executive development, and workshops.