Ute Stephan is a Professor of Entrepreneurship at King’s Business School, King’s College London.

Ute’s research has won multiple international awards including the 2025 JIBS Decade award for her lead-authored paper ‘Institutions and Social Entrepreneurship’. She ranks among the top 2% of scientists worldwide based on citations to her work (Stanford study). She has been recognized for her scientific contributions as a Fellow of the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP) and a 21st Century Entrepreneurship Fellow. Her research has attracted over £3 million in funding from the European Commission, the UK Government, UK research councils, charities, and German government institutions. She is regularly invited to give keynote addresses at leading international conferences (examples here) and is interviewed on topics of entrepreneurs’ mental well-being, the psychology of entrepreneurship, sustainability, and societal impact (examples here). Her research has often been featured in the media including the Financial Times, The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, WIRED, BBC, AlJazeera, Bloomberg, and others.

Ute currently leads a 25-country study involving over 5,000 entrepreneurs on Entrepreneurship & COVID-19, a project on women entrepreneurs’ wellbeing, and she was a lead investigator of the 10-country SEFORIS project which stands for Social Enterprises as a Force for Inclusive and Innovative Societies, and its predecessor the SELUSI project. She has led projects commissioned by UK Government Departments on social entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial aspirations.

She is an elected board member of the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP) and chairs the IAAP publication committee. She is also an IfM Research Fellow at the IfM Bonn – Institute fuer Mittelstandsforschung and Strategic Advisor to the Founder Mental Health Pledge.

As a thought leader in the Psychology of Entrepreneurship, Ute explores the human side of entrepreneurship and investigates how individuals and societies can thrive through entrepreneurship. Key themes in her research are (1) entrepreneurial well-being, stress, and mental health, (2) social entrepreneurship and inclusive business, and (3) national culture and institutions. She publishes in leading academic journals such as the Journal of Business Venturing (JBV), Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice (ETP), Annual Review of Organizational Psychology & Organizational Behavior, Journal of Management, Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS), and others. Ute currently serves as Associate Editor at two ABS4* journals, Journal of Management and Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. From 2015-2019 she was Editor-in-Chief of Applied Psychology: An International Review and from 2019-2022 Consulting Editor at the Journal of International Business Studies. Ute also serves on the editorial boards of the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, JBV, and ETP.

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