Abstract
Aims: Accelerating Campus Entrepreneurship (ACE), a Strategic Innovation Fund
collaboration, aims to produce technology graduates who would not only have the
entrepreneurial competencies to be more creative and self-confident in their careers but in
time to create new technology start-ups and become employers in the innovation economy1
.
This paper investigates the cross-campus approach to facilitate entrepreneurship opportunities
for engineering students in a way that leverages the commercial competencies of campus
innovation centres, the management competencies of the Business School and the 2
technology development competencies of the Engineering School.
Content: Previous research conducted by ACE on a case-study basis in Ireland’s institutes of
technology and universities took a multi-stakeholder perspective from students, academics,
institute management, technology transfer offices and industry1
. While the individual cases
were useful, their cross-referencing provides a valuable benchmarking insight into the
provision of entrepreneurship education to engineering students on which ACE could develop
pilot programmes. The paper, therefore, focuses on profiling practice rather than advancing
theoretical models of empirical research.
Conclusions: Developing educator competencies and institutional leadership needed to
‘mainstream’ entrepreneurship within engineering provides the principle challenge.
Furthermore, entrepreneurship education is often misconstrued as being about creating
graduate entrepreneurs and start-ups as opposed to entrepreneurial graduates. Many
pedagogical tools were identified, yet the ‘business-plan’, remains the primary underpinning,
making it difficult for engineering students to see it in a wider contextual relevance that
stimulates entrepreneurial behaviour and fosters mindsets. Yet, despite these challenges,
integrated programmes of entrepreneurship education within the technology disciplines are
gaining momentum, which over time could lead to generational change both for graduates
and for the societal roles of their educational institutions.
collaboration, aims to produce technology graduates who would not only have the
entrepreneurial competencies to be more creative and self-confident in their careers but in
time to create new technology start-ups and become employers in the innovation economy1
.
This paper investigates the cross-campus approach to facilitate entrepreneurship opportunities
for engineering students in a way that leverages the commercial competencies of campus
innovation centres, the management competencies of the Business School and the 2
technology development competencies of the Engineering School.
Content: Previous research conducted by ACE on a case-study basis in Ireland’s institutes of
technology and universities took a multi-stakeholder perspective from students, academics,
institute management, technology transfer offices and industry1
. While the individual cases
were useful, their cross-referencing provides a valuable benchmarking insight into the
provision of entrepreneurship education to engineering students on which ACE could develop
pilot programmes. The paper, therefore, focuses on profiling practice rather than advancing
theoretical models of empirical research.
Conclusions: Developing educator competencies and institutional leadership needed to
‘mainstream’ entrepreneurship within engineering provides the principle challenge.
Furthermore, entrepreneurship education is often misconstrued as being about creating
graduate entrepreneurs and start-ups as opposed to entrepreneurial graduates. Many
pedagogical tools were identified, yet the ‘business-plan’, remains the primary underpinning,
making it difficult for engineering students to see it in a wider contextual relevance that
stimulates entrepreneurial behaviour and fosters mindsets. Yet, despite these challenges,
integrated programmes of entrepreneurship education within the technology disciplines are
gaining momentum, which over time could lead to generational change both for graduates
and for the societal roles of their educational institutions.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | International Symposium for Entrepreneurship Education |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Sep 2010 |
Keywords
- entrepreneurship
- education
- Ireland
- Higher education