Entrepreneurship Education in Ireland: Towards Creating the Entrepreneurial Graduate

It is now recognised that the benefits of entrepreneurship education are not limited to the creation of new business ventures and subsequent new jobs but will develop key competencies of students, develop their mindsets and in turn enable them to be more creative and self-confident in whatever they undertake. By developing an entrepreneurial capacity among students, the economic and social well-being of a nation will be enhanced at a time when it is needed the most. Currently entrepreneurship programmes are not available to students of all non-business disciplines across the third level sector in Ireland and in light of this report, developing such offerings would have far-reaching benefits on many levels from overall economic stimulation right through to individual personal growth and development. This study was commissioned by the ACE (Accelerating Campus Entrepreneurship) Initiative as a national research project to examine entrepreneurship education across the third level sector in Ireland, from both a ‘demand side’ and ‘supply side’ perspective. The findings presented in this report highlight the gaps which exist in the provision of entrepreneurship education and the challenges and issues which need to be addressed to ensure a level playing field is created giving students across all disciplines an opportunity to develop enterprise skills and an entrepreneurial mindset.