Babson College announced at the 2014 Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference (BCERC) that the Bertarelli Foundation plans to fund the chair of the Bertarelli Foundation Distinguished Professor of Family Entrepreneurship with a $3 million gift to the school. The chair will lead a multidisciplinary approach to family enterprise, where the family is the focus.
Also announced at BCERC, was a new research prize named for Ernesto Bertarelli, a 1989 graduate of Babson College, in recognition of his family’s history of fostering entrepreneurship. The Bertarelli Prize will reward $2,500 to the best family entrepreneurship paper presented at the 2014 BCERC.
“Family entrepreneurs face a unique challenge,” said Dona Bertarelli, co-chair of The Bertarelli Foundation. “As their businesses grow or change, they, too, need to adapt and evolve. At the same time, they need to preserve the original and special strengths, passions, and entrepreneurial characteristics of the family as they move in new directions. Through this faculty chair and our partnership with Babson College, we will have the opportunity to study this dynamic and help a new generation of individuals become tomorrow’s family entrepreneurs.”
Family entrepreneurship has been at the core of Babson College from its founding. Babson College was established to educate the sons of businessmen to join their fathers’ businesses. Babson’s vast experience with family businesses includes nearly a century of teaching, research and programming for students, alumni and friends of the College.
The Bertarelli Foundation was founded in 1998 in memory of Fabio Bertarelli, by his widow Maria Iris and children, Dona and Ernesto. For the first ten years, the foundation worked primarily to establish and develop healthcare projects building upon the legacy of the Serono Foundation, focusing on issues relating to human reproductive health. In 2008 it extended its horizons to focus on more general life science research and marine conservation.