Prof. Dr. Jörn Block is a Research Fellow at the Borderstep Institute for Innovation and Sustainability. He holds the Chair of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Trier since 2012 and has founded the Steinbeis Transfer Center for Technology and IP-Management.

In his research and knowledge transfer work, he focuses on sustainability innovations and their measurability. A particular focus is on how innovation activities can be systematically recorded and made visible using patent and trademark data.

Jörn Block is a co-author of the Green Startup Report (GSR) 2026, published by the Borderstep Institute. As part of his work with the GSR team, it was possible for the first time to draw conclusions about the patent activities of green start-ups—an important indicator of the technological performance of the GreenTech scene.

His research and teaching focus on topics in the fields of entrepreneurship, innovation, and the German Mittelstand. He publishes regularly in leading journals of management and economics and is among the most prolific business scholars in the German-speaking world.

Jörn Block studied business administration from 1999 to 2005 at Humboldt University in Berlin and the Université Libre de Bruxelles. In 2009, he earned his Ph.D. from the Technical University of Munich with a dissertation on “Innovation in Family Businesses.” Since 2023, he is a visiting professor at Jönköping University in Sweden.

He was for a long time president of the Förderkreis Gründungs-Forschung (FGF), the leading academic association for entrepreneurship, innovation, and small and medium-sized enterprises in the German-speaking world. He was also leading the Section Technology, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship (TIE) of the German Academic Association for Business Research.

In addition to his work in research and teaching, Jörn Block regularly advises companies and public institutions and gives practical lectures. He is also a member of the SME Round Table at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and is actively involved in the startup scene as a founder and advisor.

Jörn lives in Trier, where he spends a lot of time at the region’s football pitches with his two sons and the family’s husky.