History of the Program

The University of Notre Dame was founded in 1842 by a 28-year old French missionary priest and entrepreneur, Fr. Edward Sorin of the Congregation of Holy Cross.  Notre Dame is an independent, Catholic, research university with national and international reach, located adjacent to the city of South Bend in Northern Indiana (pop. 300,000+), 90 miles east of Chicago.  Notre Dame is ranked among the top 15 U.S. institutions of higher learning in reports put out by U.S. News and World Report, Time, Kiplinger's, Kaplan/Newsweek, and others.  The University is consistently ranked as one of the top two Catholic institutions of higher learning world-wide by Times Higher Education.

The ESTEEM Graduate Program is in the University's Graduate School which was established in 1918 and encompasses 48 master’s and 26 doctoral degree programs in and among 30 University departments and institutes. The University is organized into four undergraduate colleges — Arts and Letters, Science, Engineering, and the Mendoza College of Business — as well as the School of Architecture, the Law School,  and the Graduate School. The University houses 14 major research institutes, two dozen centers and special programs, and the University Library system.

Notre Dame's Master's Program in Entrepreneurship, Technology, & Innovation (ESTEEM) was founded in 2009 as the first multi-disciplinary graduate program at the University.  ESTEEM is an acronym, standing for the Engineering, Science & Technology Entrepreneurship Excellence Master's Program. The Program was developed through a collaboration of the College of Science, the College of Engineering, and the Mendoza College of Business.

As of mid-2017, the ESTEEM Graduate Program, led by Assistant Provost and ESTEEM's Executive Director David Murphy, operates within the University's IDEA Center.