Gain Creators / Outcomes

• Possibility to improve educators practices, contribute to a higher level of employability of students and integrate entrepreneurial competences into learning outcomes.
• Possibility to create awareness among university educators and build the understanding that entrepreneurship education is not only about starting a business but also providing entrepreneurial competences (e.g. pro-activeness, innovativeness and responsibility for own choices).

Gains / Needs

• University educators need to improve their practices, by being able to positively affect students’ employability and understand the wider context in which specific competences and skills can be utilised and integrated with other knowledge to improve young people’s capabilities. 
• The traditional idea that entrepreneurship education is only about starting a new business has to be enriched by looking at the transversal competences and skills connected to entrepreneurship education practices.

Target Group

Educators

Implementation Method

Need to provide train-the-educators events (seminars, courses, web site, etc.), organise the courses and promote them.  In the implementation and delivery of the programmes need to collaborate with university units and representatives of business sector, non-for profit sector and public administration sector.

The International Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at J.J.Strossmayer University in Osijek (Croatia)

The International Center for Entrepreneurial Studies (ICES) and its entrepreneurship education programmes have a positive impact on the J.J. Strossmayer University (Osijek in Croatia) students across campus. More information available here: Supporting the Entrepreneurial Potential of Higher Education - http://www.sephe.eu

The curriculum consists of an undergraduate, a graduate, a postgraduate and a doctoral programme in entrepreneurship. To achieve this goal, the faculty has built relationships with international universities and external lecturers, developed their own faculty staff and established local institutions for microfinance, training of entrepreneurs and policy development. One of the main lessons learned from this experience is that even in an unfavorable environment as the one existing in Croatia it is possible to build an ecosystem related to entrepreneurship education. The preconditions are that there is adequate human resource management, basic funding and autonomy to act. The approach taken to set up the International Center for Entrepreneurial Studies might be transferable to countries or regions with comparable disadvantageous framework conditions.

Activities

• Provide support from university management and university units
• Provide train-the-educators program before starting with entrepreneurship education across campus.
• Promote importance of entrepreneurial competences among students.

Resources

• Availability of trained educators and management/administrative human resources being able to manage such unit as an entrepreneurial venture
• Financial support for learning activities

Pain Relievers / Solutions

• Entrepreneurial competences as transversal skills become a ‘glues’ connecting fragmented pieces of knowledge delivered by traditional university courses.
• Entrepreneurship education programmes and its ecosystem have been developed, even if under unfavorable economic and cultural conditions.
• The high amount of external lecturers from practice as well as from abroad using the method of team teaching increases the attraction of the programme for students, especially for those with work experience.

Pains / Challenges

• Educators inclination to expect students integrating fragmented pieces of knowledge by themselves
• Low purchasing power, high unemployment (especially among young people) and a remote location characterize the economic situation in Osijek, Croatia.
• Overall and among educators the word “entrepreneurship” has a negative connotation.