DTU’s internationally recognized innovation ecosystem will be strengthened when the innovation hub DTU Skylab and DTU Entrepreneurship—which conducts research and teaches entrepreneurship—merge on 1 January 2027. The new department will be named DTU Skylab, "Department of Technology Entrepreneurship and Innovation".
“The merger will bring research, education, and innovation practices even closer together and take DTU’s long-standing efforts in the field of innovation to a new level,” says DTU President Anders Bjarklev.
The merger contributes to the realization of DTU’s strategy for 2026–2031, in which the ability to translate research and talent into new businesses that have a societal impact is one of the university’s five focus areas.
“We’re creating a shared platform for the development and scaling of critical and sustainable technologies, collaboration with the business community, and the mobilization of DTU’s academic communities. DTU’s position will be strengthened—both externally and internally,” says DTU’s Senior Vice President of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Marianne Thellersen.
A living innovation lab
Jes Broeng, who has served as director of DTU Entrepreneurship for eight years and, since January 2026, also as interim director of the current DTU Skylab, will assume the role of interim director of the new department.
He is looking forward to strengthening DTU’s focus on talent development, among other things.
“DTU’s talent pool is enormous, and there is great potential in focusing on developing and harnessing the talent of researchers and students,” says Jes Broeng.
He calls the new department ‘a living innovation lab’, which, through experience-based learning and work on specific societal challenges, aims to build knowledge about how technology and entrepreneurial talent create societal value.
“The insights we develop together should support DTU’s overall efforts in the field of innovation—both when it comes to our research and teaching activities, our support for start-ups and our external consulting,” says Jes Broeng.
