The University of Notre Dame has been ranked as the 12th-best graduate school for entrepreneurship by the Princeton Review and Entrepreneurship Media among 250 schools across North America and Europe.
The ranking is based on the academic offerings of the University, including how many entrepreneurship courses are offered and opportunities for cross-disciplinary collaboration with students in other fields, as well as scholarship availability, mentorship programming, and the frequency of co-curricular activities like new-venture competitions. Student outcomes were also taken into account, measured by how many companies were started by graduates both over the past five and the past 10 years, and how much money those companies have raised from investors.
Notre Dame’s ESTEEM Graduate Program, the University’s lead graduate program in innovation and entrepreneurship, fuses the University’s “force for good” mission with an experiential, industry-integrated curriculum. This interdisciplinary master's program in Entrepreneurship, Technology, & Innovation (ESTEEM), formed initially by the Colleges of Science, Engineering and Business (Mendoza) and now in its 17th year as a part of Notre Dame’s IDEA Center, immerses 50-60 exceptionally talented graduate students from around the globe in real-world capstone projects for partners like Intuit, Lenovo, Medtronic, and Johnson & Johnson, as well as many smaller, cutting-edge startups.
“ESTEEM delivers a world-class educational experience by creating the most realistic entrepreneurial sandbox in higher education, where tech-savvy students from diverse backgrounds—in science, engineering, and beyond—create, design, and iterate with confidence,” said David Murphy, Executive Director for ESTEEM and Student Entrepreneurship at the IDEA Center.
In addition to offering the ESTEEM program, the IDEA Center engages the University’s seven colleges and schools to advance student and faculty entrepreneurship by providing the necessary space, services, and expertise for idea development, commercialization, business formation, prototyping, securing early stage capital, and entrepreneurial education. The University entrepreneurship ecosystem also leverages Notre Dame’s global presence, including in Dublin, Mexico City and Jerusalem, as well as networks in the greater South Bend-Elkhart Region. These initiatives create an enterprising environment dedicated to scholarship, economic development, and positive global change.
"What sets Notre Dame apart is our integration of rigorous, hands-on entrepreneurship with a powerful commitment to the common good,” Murphy said. “We intentionally cultivate servant leaders who aspire to use the power of innovation and entrepreneurship to deliver impact at scale and fix things that matter.”
To learn more about the ESTEEM program and apply, please visit the ESTEEM website.
Originally published by at esteem.nd.edu on November 21, 2025.