Vareska van de Vrande is Professor of Collaborative Innovation and Business Venturing at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. Vareska joined RSM in 2007 after completing a PhD in Industrial Engineering and Management Science at the Eindhoven University of Technology. Her expertise focuses on the areas of corporate venturing and collaborative innovation, including external technology sourcing, corporate venture capital investments, strategic alliances, and corporate-startup collaboration. Other research interests include (corporate) entrepreneurship, patents, and venture capital. She has published articles in leading academic journals, including the Strategic Management Journal, Research Policy, Journal of Operations Management, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Journal of Product Innovation Management, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, and the Journal of Business Venturing. At RSM, Vareska teaches courses and modules in Strategic Management and Corporate Venturing at the graduate and post-experience level.  

In addition, Vareska is a co-founder of the Corporate Venturing & Entrepreneurship Community, a platform that brings together academics and practitioners to exchange insights and best practices in the area of corporate venturing. She was also the co-founder and Academic Lead of Erasmus Enterprise (the incubator organization of Erasmus University), a member of the Supervisory Board of YES!Delft (the TU Delft incubator), and co-founder of two web-portals on open innovation (www.openinnovatie.nl  and www.openinnovation.eu ). Currently, she acts as a board member at Venture Café Rotterdam (part of the Cambridge Innovation Center).