3 Action Points for Supporting Student Enterprise and Entrepreneurship
Creating graduates that are employable and agile in a changing labour market is a huge task for universities, and one that they are increasingly judged on. Equipping young people with the right skills to navigate the world of employment presents challenges when engagement with university careers service is low and students are feeling an increasing lack of confidence when it comes to their future.
While much energy is being focused on how students can meet the needs of employers, it’s also worth considering how to support student enterprise and entrepreneurship. Not all students will seek to be self-employed; however, the kind of skills required to start a business or pioneer a product idea can be of use to all students.
In this article, we outline 3 key steps to encourage student enterprise and entrepreneurship. Each step is complemented with examples of work careers professionals are delivering across the sector to support students to develop enterprising skills and behaviours.
Set Definitions and Objectives
The first step is to define ‘enterprise’ and ‘entrepreneurship’ in a clear way that makes obvious the benefits and responsibilities entailed for all relevant stakeholders.
Research has indicated that student employability is more effectively enhanced when both internal and external stakeholders co-produce interventions. Yet a nebulous understanding of enterprise and entrepreneurship initiatives can lead to scepticism from key stakeholders, such as academic staff, senior leadership and alumni networks, who may not understand its value.
Having a clear definition of what you mean by ‘enterprise’ and ‘entrepreneurship’ can help to encourage buy-in from senior leadership and academic staff. We recommend using the QAA definitions of the term and adapting them to your own unique institutional circumstances.
The implementation of these definitions can then be used to identify potential interventions. For example, a research project across Manchester Metropolitan University and Liverpool John Moores University saw the QAA definitions adapted to create a new framework of embedding enterprise in the curriculum, which led to changes to academic programmes including the introduction of self-reflective enterprise journals for History students.
Alongside definitions, identifying objectives, responsibilities and potential challenges to cultivating student enterprise is crucial.
Nottingham Trent University’s SUCCESS project demonstrates how universities can successfully engage a range of different stakeholders under common definitions of the term. It brings together academics, careers and employability professionals, alumni, employers from the local community, and the university’s Centre for Student and Community Engagement (CenSCE) and Enterprise Centre.
Within this initiative, a list of objectives and desired outcomes for each stakeholder is clearly defined, along with potential challenges to delivery. These could include:
To create a clear definition of enterprising or entrepreneurial attributes that aligns with the skills cultivated in current delivery
To identify gaps in current delivery where students could be better support to build entrepreneurial skills
To set up a framework for collaboration between academic staff and employability professionals to support the delivery of enterprising skills on the curriculum
To increase the number of students accessing entrepreneurial opportunities within the university, such as start-up funding awards or student enterprise competitions
The project reported positive feedback across different stakeholder groups, with academics and senior leaders well attuned to the benefits of bolstering enterprise and entrepreneurial education.
Recognise Existing Enterprising Activities
Students develop enterprising skills in almost all areas of their academic life – we just sometimes lack the language to recognise it.
For example, within the QAA definition, enterprising skills, attributes and competencies can include anything from taking initiative to adaptability and creative problem solving. These are the kinds of attributes that are developed in academic programmes, as well as the skills careers professionals so often try to tease out in CV building sessions with students.
University of the Arts London identified enterprising activities that were already at play among their student body through the creation of a Creative Attributes Framework. By drawing on data as well as the experience of academics and alumni in consultations, the careers team identified 3 core capacities of creative careers, which were then broken down into 9 creative attributes.
The framework aims to gives students and graduates the personal and professional development they need to thrive in the creative industries. While the framework is specific to UAL’s specialist provision and the unique ambitions of their graduates, the process used to create it could be adapted by other institutions and disciplines.
Once you’ve identified how your institution encourages and your students undertake enterprising activities, you can design interventions that support students to articulate relevant attributes and plan their next career steps.
Design Responsive Interventions
The interventions you design to foster student enterprise and entrepreneurship should respond to the unique circumstances of your students.
Potential areas to consider could include:
Working with academics to embed enterprise and entrepreneurial education into the curriculum. Advance HE’s compendium of case studies provides a plethora of examples of initiatives being undertaken across different disciplinary and institutional contexts.
Developing prizes and competitions within the careers service to encourage entrepreneurial activities and behaviours.
Running events and workshops oriented around enterprise and entrepreneurship, preferably with the input of alumni who have followed such paths.
Examples of such activities are plentiful across the sector. The University of Lincoln has it’s own Student Enterprise centre, which offers a range of free resources, runs a Growing Graduate Enterprise programme and organises an annual Enterprise Conference.
Meanwhile, the Spark project at the University of Leeds delivers time-limited, focused enterprise interventions, including an entrepreneurial workshop programme, incubation facilities, networking opportunities and support with the Start-Up visa.
New research has shown that, in the cost-of-living crisis, more students than ever are undertaking non-traditional forms of paid work such as online ‘influencing’.
Other institutions have worked to align entrepreneurial opportunities for these students with delivery on the Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF). For example, De Montfort University’s graduate start-up work forms a significant part of their success in the KEF evaluation, with high engagement for CPD training and graduate start-ups. Similarly, UCL recognise the role of graduate start-ups in their KEF success, with a number of case studies on their website that show the social impact of what their graduates have gone on to achieve.
Integrating the entrepreneurial opportunities you offer to students with KEF targets is a great way to set yourself up for success. Be sure to work closely with colleagues who are major stakeholders in your institution’s approach to KEF.
To find out more about you can harness HE Business and Community Interaction (HE-BCI) data within your institution, join us for an Action Day on 11 July 2023.
Finally, measuring and monitoring what success looks like in these initiatives is crucial. You can adapt other ways that you measure success in employability guidance and support – a great resource to turn to is this Advance HE episode
However, you should also consider setting unique benchmarks and KPIs for entrepreneurial activity, as it is a distinct kind of employability support to other forms for careers guidance. For further information on this subject, see Megan Powell Vreeswijk’s (Head of Enterprise, Nottingham Trent University) HE Professional article exploring insights from the Dyden Enterprise Centre.
Enterprising Education
The recommendations in this article are starting points for professionals seeking to bolster enterprise and entrepreneurial education. By setting clear definitions and objectives, identifying existing practices and designing interventions that respond to your unique institutional context, you can design and deliver enterprise interventions that support students in their career journeys, whether that be towards a typical graduate role, self-employment or anything in between.
While these recommendations are a good starting point, it’s also worth reflecting on some questions that will inform the infrastructure of your approach, such as:
How can you obtain backing from senior leadership to deliver high impact interventions?
How can you engage academic staff in the enterprise and entrepreneurial education agenda?
How can you make use of your alumni networks to demonstrate feasible entrepreneurial career paths for current students?
Students who are enterprising are flexible, resilient and creative. Encouraging the growth of enterprising and entrepreneurial activities and behaviours can bolster the graduate outcomes of all students, by providing them with the skills and attributes to succeed in an evolving labour market.
