Christin Eckerle has been a research associate and doctoral candidate at the Institute for Entrepreneurship, Technology Management, and Innovation (EnTechnon) since July 2020. Her responsibilities at the institute include the conception and implementation of entrepreneurship seminars with the goal of developing innovative approaches to solutions in the context of new technologies and emerging needs. Furthermore, she is involved in various workshops on sustainability and impact in co-teaching. She is also part of the KIT excellence project ARRTI (Academy for Responsible Research, Teaching, and Innovation).

In February 2025, she successfully defended her PhD thesis: "Impact Investment for Startups: Conceptualization and Design Support for Impact Assessment". It provides a comprehensive understanding of the interplay between impact investing and the unique challenges faced by impact-driven startups. Her work emphasizes the theoretical relevance of conflicting goals, social learning, and information asymmetry in the interconnection of impact investors and impact-driven startups. Further, it contributes to the ongoing debate about the legitimacy of startups in relation to sustainability. The findings highlight the necessity of translating impact goals into tangible criteria that can be measured at the output level to strengthen the legitimacy of an impact claim.

From August until December 2022, she collaborated with Prof. Ji-Hwan Lee as a Visiting Researcher at KAIST College of Business in Seoul, South Korea.

Before joining EnTechnon, Christin Eckerle worked at CyberForum e.V. as a project manager. From July 2019, she was the project lead for the Digital Hub Applied Artificial Intelligence. Until May 2021, she also worked in business development at a young startup company, Neohelden GmbH.

In August 2018, she completed her studies in Political and Administrative Science (M.A.) at the University of Konstanz, of which she studied one semester at the University of Vienna. During her studies, she also worked as an auxiliary research assistant at the Chair of Material State Theory in Network Research.

Research Focus

• Impact Investing
• Sustainable Entrepreneurship
• Mission-driven Entrepreneurship
• Social Entrepreneurship

Projects

• ARRTI: Academy for responsible Research, Teaching and Innovation, Project Lead Responsible Innovation (Since 11/2020) (https://www.arrti.kit.edu/)
• StartUpsGEno: Entwicklung eines Lehr- und Beratungsmoduls für Startups zur Evaluierung der Rechtsform Genossenschaft, Project Lead (12/2024 - 06/2025)
• Social Innovation Venturing: Anchoring social entrepreneurship based on technological applications in existing start-up programs (SIV), Project Lead (08/2023 - 06/2024)
• Industry project: Marketing & Communication (2020)

Teaching

• Student Innovation Lab (SIL) (since WS 2021/22)
• Impact Workshop: SIL, Startup X, Hector School, CyberLab, ARRTI Mentorship (ongoing)
• Teamproject (SS 2021; WS 2023/24)
• Hector School: Entrepreneurship Unit (2022/ 2023)
• Innovative Project (WS 2021/22)
• Entrepreneurship Research (SS 2021)
• Entrepreneurship Basics (SS 2021; WS 2021/22)
• Coaching 10+ Bachelor and Master students in their thesis projects (since WS 2020/21)

Scholarships

• KIT Research Travel Grant for an international research stay (2022)

If you are interested in writing a Bachelor or Master thesis, feel free to contact me at any time.