What is the masterful formula for entrepreneurship? This is the question that IQS is seeking to answer with an exhibition open to the public until March to highlight 110 years of entrepreneurship at the university.
What is the masterful formula for entrepreneurship? This is the question that IQS is seeking to answer with an exhibition open to the public until March to highlight 110 years of entrepreneurship at the university.
More than 400 business initiatives have made it possible to analyse the capacity of IQS alumni and entrepreneurs to find those magical ingredients that have led them to success. From this perspective, the exhibition “The masterful formula of entrepreneurship: 110 years of entrepreneurship” showcases the values required to find the perfect formula. 
"Since 1916, IQS has been a leading university, and the creation of new companies has been a constant among students," says Jordi Arbusà, the “Igniter ” at IQS Tech Factory. While it is true that the creation of new companies by IQS graduates has been exponential over the past 20 years (and in increasingly diverse fields due to the 24 degrees it offers), the university had already clearly contributed to gaining recognition for the powerful Catalan chemical and pharmaceutical industry worldwide during the second half of the 20th century.
Along the same lines, Roser Grau, Manager at IQS Tech Factory, said: “It's a fact that the entrepreneurial spirit has been part of the university's DNA since its creation, and the exhibition demonstrates this. The key lies in the way in which learning has always been done at IQS, by making each student a highly proactive individual.”
The study of the 400 business initiatives shows that it currently takes fewer years to go from an entrepreneur's graduation to the creation of their first company: “almost 40% of the initiatives established in the 21st century have been created between their graduation year and the five subsequent years, reducing the average from 12 to 10 years,” says Arbusà.
Taking a closer look at the businesses created through the IQS community, the size of the companies has grown recently, where 46% have more than 50 people on their staff, with an average of 15 professionals per company.
IQS startup revenue stands at €2.3 million, MedTech has increased significantly both in the device sector and in the pharma sector, and all companies related to ICTs are disrupting the purchasing, sales, and distribution environment.
With this in mind, Grau explains that a key distinguishing element at the university and IQS Tech Factory compared to other entrepreneurship units involves having talent from the two IQS schools: Engineering and Management. She stated, “our desire is to further encourage the creation of ‘mixed projects’ where management and technological innovation are brought together by students."
Innovation and entrepreneurship, IQS's commitment to professional success
The exhibition is structured through an ingenious simile between chemistry and entrepreneurship. The initiator in a chemical reaction represents the initial impulse needed by an entrepreneur to launch a business project. Chemical accelerators represent the people, not only those engaged in the entrepreneurial initiative, but also those that are directly or indirectly related to it. Finally, the chemical reagents represent, continuing with the comparison, the key parameters in developing the company's activity.
The "Time" section shows the evolution of IQS entrepreneurial projects and how they have been able to take advantage of opportunities depending the socioeconomic context, whether the beginning of democracy following the dictatorship in Spain, or the years prior to sporting events such as the Football World Cup and the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games.
The visiting public can interact with the exhibition through a dynamic feature where they indicate the degree of priority for the criteria of innovation, financial return, sustainability, and social impact when creating a company.
Within the framework of the opening of the exhibition, an IQS Tech Factory Talk was held on NNERGIX, a startup created by Ramon Molera, a former student in Industrial Engineering, who gave a first-hand account of what the complete entrepreneurial circle is like: from the idea to selling the company.
These initiatives form part of IQS Tech Factory's current objective: to continue detecting, increasingly and better, all IQS talent, as well as being the ideal platform for them to make their project a reality,” summarizes Grau.
The exhibition is being held thanks to the Doctoral Thesis by Dr Núria Vallmitjana, the Tech Factory team, Domestic Data Streamers, and AIQS Alumni and is being curated by the Library, Campus Life, and the IQS Communications and Marketing department.
