I live in Colombia, and here our education system is distributed as 96% of universities are private and the remaining 4% are public. There are 286 universities in the country, we're 46 million people and is the largest city with 8 million Bogotá. There're eight incubators in the country and while emerging companies in different sectors such as recycling, cosmetics, tourism, games, tic, and others, the ecosystem of entrepreneurship in the country is not yet well defined. As such there are no clusters, and the most professional and magister or doctors do not have adequate employment opportunities for these reasons leave the country ...
So if I'm clear, I'm showing how our country can not be compared to an economy with the United States of America and the British, then here is where my question arises ...considering that all actors must add value to start ups (as I said Rodrigo) then really what is the role of the university? Only to create basic research for the marketing companies? To develop spin off? To encourage students to think like high-impact entrepreneurs? To develop different business models?
If i can contribute to your research question you could consider as follow: what is the role of universities in creating a Business Cluster? thereafter, you can concentrate on certain business filed, like agriculture e.g. and then define how the universities can help to sustain this cluster, is it by creating R&D centre, bringing new innovative learning methods and so on…
And to answer your question, I would say that the role of universities is very important in any country's economy. Especially, because education motivate future entrepreneurs and provide them with possibilities and open opportunities. After all universities are learning centres and Passports to any business field.
I would also recommend if you have time to check out the Finnish Education System.
In my opinion, there are three main roles that universities should have in fostering entrepreneurship.
1. To provide students with opportunities to really understand how entrepreneurs think. By understanding the anatomy of entrepreneurs, all relevant stakeholders can learn how to support them.
2. Another important thing for universities is to emphasize the importance of failure on entrepreneurial ventures. Failure is as important as success and not stigmatizing failure and encouraging students to take initiatives, can lead to more innovation and invention.
3. Introducing the concept of social entrepreneurs as change agents for societies. Bridging the gap between social problems and entrepreneurs helps students understand that social problems should not be left to governments only.
Other roles include introducing students to strategies and tools that they can use to test different ideas, understand business models, evaluate attractiveness of industries, etc.
Adnane and Bierta,
thanks for your answer. These help me to understand this entangled topic: college entrepreneurship.
In my country we have the opinion the entrepreneurship is a way to transform, to change the society since different forms, and here i'm looking for new forms to improve this change... The clusters is a way, the class room is another way, and the experiencie is another different way... In your schools which of these ways has worked best?
Julian, I think we sometimes want to complicate the roles that Universities have to play because "Universities" are seen as these highly theoretical, scientific institutions. Here in South Africa, at the University of Pretoria we have a dualistic approach: One for students on undergraduate (Bachelors) and post graduate (Masters and Doctoral) and the major goal is to empower these students, especially the post graduate students to play a role in the assistance of short course students as mentors. Nevertheless a university has to assist prospective and established entrepreneurs to satisfy one of their most important needs: THEY WANT TO START TO MAKE MONEY OR MAKE MORE MONEY.
Julian, to add to my previous contribution I would also like to suggest that Universities, faculty (Staff) and post grad students make them available to consult entrepreneurs/ prospective entrepreneurs to increase their footprint in this ecosystem. The prerequisite is however that you need faculty that have been around the block a bit (had their own businesses) to not only attempt to assist, based on theory, but based on their experience. Student clubs at our University of Pretoria is very active and involve students from all faculties in a business plan competition including the broader community as well. Regards
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