insight gb 8:insight gb 6

CFEINSIGHT #08 1

November 2009

Universities across OECD countriesare assuming new responsibilities asdrivers of local and nationaleconomies. They play an importantrole in teaching the necessary tech-nical, scientific and creative skills fortoday’s knowledge economy and areactively engaged in both educatingstudents about entrepreneurship andsupporting existing and potentialenterprises. Many have establishedentrepreneurship professorships,departments and institutes for entre-preneurship that already feature asintegral parts of the internal supportstructure. Dedicated start-up supportservices in entrepreneurship centresand technology transfer units offerconsultation and access to networksand premises to would-be entrepre-neurs and those already in the start-up process.

Universities now need to adapt toinnovative and best practice methodsin entrepreneurship education and tostrengthen their entrepreneurshipsupport infrastructures. The LEEDProgramme has been working in thisfield for over 10 years now with theoverall aim of helping national andlocal governments and universities inmaking their local entrepreneurshipsupport more effective. The LEEDapproach has always been to help itsmembers learn from an internationalexchange of best (and worst) practice,

thus learning from what does - anddoesn’t - work. This has guided ourproject with the German FederalMinistry of Transport, Building andUrban Affairs on policy options forincreasing entrepreneurship in theEastern German Länder and the Hallegood practice workshop on“Universities, Innovation andEntrepreneurship” that we held withthe Ministry in June 2009. Highlightsfrom both are featured in this issueof CFE Insight.

Editorial by Sergio Arzeni

Head of the OECD LEEDProgramme and Director

of the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs

and Local Development

� Universities are at the hub of entrepreneurshipEditorial by Sergio Arzeni, Head of the OECD LEED Programme and Director of theOECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs and Local Development

� How do universities in Eastern Germany teach entrepreneurship and how canthey improve?Interview with Jonathan Potter, OECD Senior Economist and Andrea-RosalindeHofer, OECD Policy Analyst

� Promoting business in Germany with the LEED ProgrammeInterview with Wolfgang Tiefensee, German Federal Government Minister forTransport, Building and Urban Affairs and Commissioner for Eastern Germany,Germany

� Making innovative entrepreneursInterview with Philip Phan, Professor and Vice Dean for Faculty and Research, the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, USA

� Filling in the gaps in entrepreneurship teachingInterview with FGünter Faltin, Professor of Entrepreneurship, Freie University,Berlin

� Changing the entrepreneurial mindset through a four pillar approachInterview with Professor Grünwald, Recor, University of Wismar

� Helping students to become more entrepreneurial in PolandInterview with Prof. Krzystof Zieba, Gdansk University of Technology

� Mentoring Entrepreneurs at the Entrepreneurship Centre in BerlinInterview with Agnes Von Matuschka, Head of the Entrepreneurship Centre,Gründungsservice, at the Technical University of Berlin

� SMEs, Entrepreneurship and InnovationBy Pier Carlo Padoan, OECD Deputy Secretary General in charge of the OECDInnovation Strategy

Index:

INSIGHT#08INSIGHT

By reading the interviews in this issue,you will have a better understandingof the role of alumni, the need to breakwith conventions in teaching entre-preneurship, the role of culture andthe differences between the US andEurope, the importance of qualifiedteachers and start-up support staffand the six dimensions that consti-tute good practice in university entre-preneurship support. I hope you havean enjoyable read. �

Universities are at the hubof entrepreneurship

How Universities Foster Entrepreneurship

INSIGHT_GB_8:INSIGHT_GB_6 8/12/09 11:59

#08 CFEINSIGHT2

How do universities in Eastern Germany teach entrepreneurshipand how can they improve?

>>>

Interview with Jonathan Potter, OECD Senior Economist and Andrea-Rosalinde Hofer, OECD Policy Analyst

What was aim of the Halle confe-rence?

We wanted to bring together univer-sities from eastern Germany – a regionwe have been involved with for sometime – and other countries to discusshow to give support to entrepreneur-ship. We wanted to do it within a com-mon framework of understanding,which we set out as the OECD.Obviously, entrepreneurship supportis important everywhere but espe-cially so in Eastern Germany whereafter 20 years of reunification there isstill the challenge of creating jobs andraising living standards up to the lev-els of Western Germany. There hasbeen progress, but that convergencehas not yet been achieved.Increasingly there is an appreciationthat government spending on infra-structure, incentives for the attractionof large scale foreign investment andso on is all very well but long-termgrowth has to come from inside theregion as well. And it can only comefrom new product development,increasing efficiency, marketing andother features of entrepreneurshipbehaviour. That requires knowledgeand the best place to find it is in theuniversity.

You set out six dimensions of goodpractice in university entrepreneur-ship support. What is the aim ofthis exercise?

We established the six dimensions, orthe good practice criteria list, as wecall it, from the innovation and entre-preneurship literature and our casestudy work. The idea was to develop

an assessment framework that helpsus in our review and policy develop-ment work, but at the same time tocome up with a “tool” that universitiescan use to self-assess and re-orienttheir current strategy, structure andpractice in entrepreneurship support.Within each of the six dimensions –strategy; finance and investment; sup-port infrastructure; entrepreneurshipeducation; start-up support; and eval-uation – there are a number of princi-ples of good practice or, if you want,benchmarks for universities. Forexample, under the “strategy” dimen-sion we established four principles:first, entrepreneurship support shouldbe a strategic objective of the univer-sity which is endorsed by top man-agement as well as faculties; secondthe objective of entrepreneurship sup-port should include generating entre-preneurial attitudes, behaviour andskills as well as enhancing businessstart-ups; third, there should be clearincentives and rewards for professors,researchers and students to engage;and, finally, recruitment and careerdevelopment of academic staff shouldbe ‘entrepreneurship sensitive’, mean-ing that previous entrepreneurialcareers and active promotion of entre-preneurship should be recognised.

So which was the best university?

We can’t say there is a best universityand this was not the overall aim ofthe exercise! Entrepreneurship is still‘added on’ by many universities totheir main research and teachingactivities and not given real impor-tance. But universities are not singleorganisations in this but collections

of agents – there is the management,the faculties and departments, theprofessors, the students, etc. the qual-ity of university entrepreneurshipdepends on all of these. Becoming anentrepreneurial university is a long-term process which requires commit-ment at many levels and often specificpublic funding for entrepreneurship.There are clear signs that universitiesin OECD countries are beginning totake their entrepreneurship missionseriously, and hence the interest inthe OECD project. Our aim is to assistdecision makers in universities andpolitics to improve and innovate,building on the internationalexchange in the Halle workshop.

You mentioned Halle. How did youorganise the internationalexchange of good practice?

LEED has long-standing experience inorganising international exchangeand learning events; we also organisecapacity building seminars at our cen-tre in Trento. LEED provides the frame-work for the exchange, based oncountry-specific and comparativeanalysis. And this is how Halleworked. We got delegates from thepolicy making level and universitymanagement involved in round tablediscussions around the major find-ings from our work which paved theway to the core element of the Halleevent – the good practice exchange.We organised a ‘market’-typeexchange environment which wecalled openspace where good practicemethods are under the lens. At Halle,we had 21 university entrepreneur-ship support initiatives from Germany


CFEINSIGHT #08 3

and elsewhere – Poland, Finland, theUK, the US, Sweden, and South Africa.This created a forum for networkingand idea generation, which was reallyappreciated. People were able toengage with each other, exchangegood practice and ask some detailedquestions on what works well, why itworks and where are the main pitfallsand challenges.

And you as OECD experts also hadan input.

Yes, we’ve reviewed university entre-preneurship support in three places inEast Germany: Halle, Rostock andBerlin and we’ve looked at the litera-ture, talked to experts and comparedwith universities elsewhere. Theresult of our analysis is four basic rec-ommendations on ways to improve.One point is that we feel the commondefinition of entrepreneurship in uni-versities is too narrow. It’s too muchfocussed on getting students to “startup.” We believe it is important to gobeyond that. We have to recognisethat students may not want to startup their own businesses straightaway.And it is important too to impartentrepreneurship skills that can beused in a wide variety of ways, notjust in start-ups. We need to gobeyond the regular fare of businessplan competitions and grants forstart-ups and teach entrepreneurialattitudes and behaviours across thecurriculum.

A second point is that though thereare many professors who are ener-getic and talented, too many are beingasked to teach entrepreneurship with-out any training in how to do it. Afterall these are mainly university lectur-ers – and teaching entrepreneurship isa very different skill. It requires anapproach that is different from stan-dard teaching. It has to be experiential– elements like role-playing, virtualbusinesses and so on are the key. It isnot an easy matter. The faculties thatare doing it well are really pioneering.So our recommendation is that weneed to train our teachers better.Luckily there is a lot of potential forbringing people together from differ-ent universities to exchange ideas onhow to do this.

Then there is the big problem of lackof incentives for those who choose toget involved in entrepreneurshipteaching or helping students to startup. The way teaching staff are hiredand promoted does not encouragethem to spend much time supportingentrepreneurs. What counts more isthe number or the quality of publica-tions a professor makes. There are fewcredits for professors who get involvedin entrepreneurship courses. They doit as an extra, if you like. There aresome who do it as a stand-alonecourse but you often get the feelingthey are somehow outside the system.So we think recruitment and careerdevelopment must be more sensitive

to entrepreneurship teaching. The cur-rent regulations make that very hard.

And finally, we have identified a prob-lem of evaluation. It is clear there area lot of new approaches out there. Butwe have no idea what impact theyhave, what students are actually learn-ing and what added value there is frombeing taught entrepreneurship – inshort what are people learning thatthey did not know already or wouldnot have learned elsewhere. We havea general intuition that there is a pos-itive effect from entrepreneurship edu-cation – we see people setting upbusinesses – but we need to knowexactly how it is changing things.Therefore we need a thorough processof evaluation. This is very importantbecause the next step is persuadingpoliticians and the powers-that-be thatwhat we are doing is worthwhile andworth investing in. For that we needthe evidence of success, allowingmoney to be directed into programmeswhich we know work best.

What comes next?

What we’ve learned so far is that uni-versities can be an important sourcefor new, growth-oriented entrepre-neurship. Universities are meetingplaces for people with different back-grounds, talents and risk perceptions.They generate creativity. And it is notjust about start-ups but also aboutshaping entrepreneurial mindsets.Universities are more and moreinvolved in this but there is still a needto understand better how they canhelp. And the issue of teaching entre-preneurship is not just for universi-ties but also for other levels, inparticular vocational training and in-firm training. So we have developed anew project we will be running nextyear on ‘skills for entrepreneurship’to examine what entrepreneurshipskills really are and how they can bedelivered not just in universities butalso in other contexts. �


#08 CFEINSIGHT4

What is your assessment of economicdevelopment in Eastern Germany?

Eastern Germany is changing into amodern and sustainable businesslocation. Although in terms of eco-nomic performance, there is still aconsiderable gap between the easternand western parts of Germany, interms of key indicators such as grossdomestic product or productivity, theyhave clearly converged in recent years.Between 2005 and 2007, the economyin the eastern German Länder devel-oped in a very positive manner. In2007, there was economic growth of2.2 percent. In 2008, due to the nega-tive development in the fourth quar-ter, the growth rate was reduced to1.1 percent, however the industrialsector showed a significant improve-ment. If we look at the current figures,Eastern Germany’s industrial valueadded has thus grown by nearly 55percent since the year 2000. This isalso confirmed by a ranking ofGerman small enterprises with espe-cially high growth rates (“world cham-pions”) published in 2008: Severalcompanies among those with thehighest growth rates, including thosethat rank first and second, are fromEastern Germany.

After several years of positive eco-nomic development in the new federalstates, the current international eco-nomic and financial crisis has becomeclearly noticeable in Eastern Germany.Yet Eastern Germany is benefiting

both from the fact that its industry isdominated by small and medium-sized enterprises and from activelabour market policies such as short-time work.

How important is the topic of busi-ness start-ups in Eastern Germany?

The promotion of business start-upsis an indispensable element of eco-nomic policy. Institutions of highereducation are of particular importancein this context because of their poten-tial to generate firms based on inno-vations and good ideas. And a goodsign for Eastern Germany is that interms of the rate at which new com-panies are established, East and WestGermany have converged.

At the same time, we have to intensifyour efforts to provide young people inEastern Germany with education andtraining for the labour market, includ-ing entrepreneurial skills. Accordingto surveys and forecasts, the need forhighly qualified labour (especially uni-versity graduates) will continue toincrease. In terms of quantity, the newcohorts will hardly be able to replacethose retiring from the labour market.Forecasts assume that the number ofschool leavers will halve in the periodbetween 2000 and 2020. So, good tech-nical and entrepreneurship educationfor those coming through is critical.

But constraints are already apparentin certain regions and industry sec-

tors, in particular in those parts ofmanufacturing that are R&D-inten-sive and look almost exclusively forskilled labour. We know that it is muchmore difficult for smaller enterprisesthan for big and well-known compa-nies to recruit personnel, but also thatthey are key to the future and so bet-ter linking education with the needsof future labour markets and theneeds of new and small firms is animportant task of public policy.

What does Germany do to promotebusiness start-ups from highereducation institutions?

For many years, the FederalGovernment has very successfullyapplied a financial assistance pro-gramme called “Business start-upsoriginating from academia”. The mostrecent expansion of the programmetook place in 2008. The programme,called EXIST, supports people at highereducation institutions and researchinstitutes wanting to start a businessduring the preparation and realisa-tion of their idea. They are providedwith a grant and with non-cashresources in order to enable them tocreate a business plan and developtheir innovative idea for a product orservice. A total of 155 new start-upgrants were provided in 2008, 71 ofthem in the new federal states in east-ern Germany or in Berlin.

Since the EXIST start-up grant pro-gramme has a rather broad target

Promoting business in Germany with the LEED Programme

>>>

Interview with Wolfgang Tiefensee, German Federal Government Minister for Transport, Building and Urban Affairsand Commissioner for Eastern Germany, Germany


CFEINSIGHT #08 5

group, there is also an EXIST researchtransfer programme which supportshighly technologically sophisticated,research-based spin-off projectsentailing extensive, costly and riskydevelopment work. Every year, finan-cial assistance is provided to around25 high tech start-up projects all overGermany; 23 new research transferprojects were approved in 2008, eightin the eastern Länder. Other publicsupport for high-tech start-ups, suchas seed financing, is also importantto helping overcome difficulties.

Indeed, the development of the start-up culture at higher education insti-tutions and research institutes isprogressing. In addition to the ongo-ing projects, another 25 have beenincluded in new rounds of the pro-gramme. This means that, in total, wenow have 62 ongoing projects of which16 are located in the new federal statesor Berlin. These projects help to estab-lish a range of services used to moti-vate students and academics, mainlyfrom the departments of technologyand natural sciences, to start a busi-ness and provide them with the skillsthey require.

How would you rate LEED’s workon university entrepreneurship inEastern Germany?

Generally speaking the results are pos-itive. Higher education institutions arevery important for economicdynamism and the renewal of regionalknowledge bases, particularly inEastern Germany. The LEED work dealtwith some specific issues such as uni-versity business start-up potential,consulting capacities and the qualityof the links with the region and withindustry. In particular it showed that

were given very good marks. It wasuseful to have this illustrated and tobe able to see how others are doing.

How do you see future cooperationwith LEED?

Our cooperation in the past – and Ibelieve I can speak for both sides here– has been very inspiring. It gives usdirect access to international experi-ence and LEED is geared to everydayneeds. Although examples from othercountries can of course not be appliedin Germany without modifying andadjusting them, the experience andideas exchanged have greatly con-tributed to policy development. On theother hand, the process of economictransformation in Eastern Germany iswithout precedent and I am sure thatthe other OECD Member countries willbe very keen to get first-hand infor-mation on this success story. �

the networks between industry andacademia have in recent years devel-oped into a competitive advantage forEastern Germany. But LEED arguedthat there is additional potential inthe transfer of knowledge fromresearch institutes to industry, in theapplication of this knowledge intoviable market products and in thelinks between academia and industryat the local level, which has not yetbeen fully exploited. At the highereducation institutions examined inthe study, ‘entrepreneurship educa-tion’ is still in an early stage of devel-opment and the commitment and theincentivisation of the teaching staff,the students’ willingness to partici-pate and the variety and number ofcourses offered in this field were stillless developed than at leading highereducation institutions in other OECDcountries. But, overall, higher educa-tion institutions in Eastern Germany


#08 CFEINSIGHT6

What is the main focus of your workat the Johns Hopkins University?

My area of research is technologyentrepreneurship and innovation. Ourprogramme is entirely focused on thequestion of how managers can under-stand technology and innovation asenablers of everything that goes on inthe value-creation process. On ourprogramme when we talk of entre-preneurship, we tend to define it morebroadly than others do. The way wesee it, opening a business of one’s ownis only one possible component ofentrepreneurship. Many of our gradu-ates go on to jobs in Fortune 500 com-panies – but their perspective is onhow the innovation process drives whattheir companies do and how they, asindividuals, contribute to this.

You’ve worked with LEED on theEastern Germany review. What les-sons from your work in the UnitedStates are applicable there?

The issue is how to engender or accel-erate economic development in aregion such as Eastern Germany viathe process of entrepreneurship. That’sthe goal of the German governmentand that’s the goal of the work done atthe OECD LEED programme. The issueis similar to what we face here in theUS – especially in our rural areas. Herewe have seen how through techno-logical entrepreneurship, you can cre-ate something that can be very easilyleveraged. If for example, you have asmall company that creates a productthat can be sold all over the world – byvirtue of the Internet – then you have

created a tremendous amount ofvalue-added from a very small eco-nomic base. That is the logic behindsetting up in rural areas, because youcan create a whole ecology around theoriginal act of entrepreneurship. Nowin the countryside there may not betoo many technically trained people,since those who have such skills willmigrate to the cities where the jobsare located. Therefore, the aim of pub-lic policy is to kick start a value-cre-ation process that becomes in itself anattractor for services and products.Look at Silicon Valley. It started fromvirtually nothing. At the beginning itwas Hewlett-Packard and nothing else.It was tiny, but then it grew exponen-tially. It is a bit like a blue whale in theocean. It is so big it creates its ownecosystem. This is a possible modelfor Eastern Germany.

So is it a question of EasternGermany simply following an exis-ting model?

The difficulty in doing this is identi-fying what could be the so-called‘magic formula’. Or indeed deciding ifsuch a magic formula even exists. Weknow some things have to happen forthe ecosystem to take off. You needcapital, you need risk-takers, tech-nology, the right environment for peo-ple to develop technology and thenfor others to develop business con-cepts. And you need a way for theentrepreneur to reap the rewards, forexample through a stock market forinitial public offerings. Alternativelythere has to exist the ability for smallstart-ups to be sold to larger compa-

nies that can exploit the markets andtechnologies they have created. Thiswill spread the money back into thevalue creating ecosystem so that it isself-sustaining. But what we do notknow yet is if there is a standard for-mula. Policy-makers of course like tothink that there is one. In EasternGermany for example, they are spend-ing a lot of money on creating the net-works which are supposed to be partof that formula – networks linkingventure capitalists, entrepreneurs,university students and so on. A lotof money is spent on business-plancompetitions, on creating incubatorsand support structures and so on.They are intent on having the rightinfrastructure. And that is fine. But myfeeling is that it is not enough.

So what is lacking?

Eastern Germany’s history and the tra-dition of strong government supportfor social programmes mean that thepredisposition for taking risks or tostarting one’s own business is farsmaller than it is in the United States,where the social safety net is set muchlower. Here in the United States if youdon’t have a job, you have to go outand make one for yourself in order tolive. It is as simple as that. So every-where there is a historical traditionthat either mitigates or enhances theentrepreneurial drive. This is a bigchallenge for Eastern Germany – over-coming dependence on state support.Personally, I believe change will onlycome generationally. One cannot thinkin terms of fixing it today. All effortsshould be focused today on tomor-

Making innovativeentrepreneurs

>>>

Interview with Philip Phan, Professor and Vice Dean for Faculty and Research, the Johns Hopkins Carey BusinessSchool, USA


CFEINSIGHT #08 7

row’s generation. Schools and univer-sities need to be targeted. In themeantime, governments should fig-ure out what to do with the displacedworkers who do not have the skillsneeded for the modern economy. Butthat is a political and a labour issue.On the economic front, it is attitudesthat need to change. What we havefound is that you can put a lot ofmoney into entrepreneurship supportprogrammes, but if the mindset doesnot change, then it all becomes littlemore than another form of socialassistance. And I fear this has hap-pened in Eastern Germany. The gov-ernment there is pumping lots ofmoney into ‘entrepreneurship infra-structure.’ But what it has created isan industry of people living from grantto grant and not necessarily takingthe risks needed to create sustainablenew businesses.

You seem to be suggesting thatthere is not much that can be donein the short-term. The governmentcan take its ‘off-the-peg’ formulafor promoting entrepreneurship butthat is unlikely to be enough. Andmentalities won’t change immedia-tely either.

No, I am not sure in the short term thatmuch can be done that will dramati-cally change the immediate situation.In the long term, a systematic effortfocused on establishing a culture ofcreative risk taking will have more pos-itive consequences. Today there is a lotgoing on in Eastern Germany, butbecause politicians are focused onquick solutions, since election cyclesare very short term, they do not alwayshave the incentives to invest for thelong haul. They want proof that whatthey are doing is working and so theyask for example: how many businesses

have we created? Without knowinghow many businesses survive past thefirst three years, that is a meaninglessstatistic. So it is not just a question ofmoney and programmes. It is alsoabout having a national conversationabout why this is so important. Theeconomy in Germany, particularly thesouth, is surprisingly characterised bysmall and medium enterprises, whichis precisely why it is robust. So it is notas if in the east, they are not exposedto these ideas. The question is how thishistoric tradition of entrepreneurshipin the south can be transferred to theeast.

The change has to be systematic, gen-erational and part of the national psy-che. There has to be a lot of effortdevoted to changing people’s attitudesabout the importance of entrepre-neurial activity. For example, the uni-versities that focus on trainingmanagers and engineers for largecompanies can augment their pro-grammes to also pay attention to theneed for innovation and creativity.Whether in course content, projectsor assessments, such a focus on the‘softer skills’ will send the messagethat such activities are important.Large companies that support uni-versity education could also confer apremium, with additional support, forthose programs focused on innova-tion and creativity. Consequently,what becomes taught in universitieswill then apply equally well to largeand smaller high-growth enterprises.

Can a society pick the people itwants as entrepreneurs and trainthem for the task?

We cannot predetermine who will bean entrepreneur. What we can do aretrain people to think in an entrepre-

neurial way and to expose them tothe opportunities if they choose topursue entrepreneurship. Most grad-uates will inevitably end up in largecorporations but what they shouldget from their education is the abilityto think and act entrepreneurially. Imean by that the ability to think outof the box to solve problems with lim-ited resources. These skills are usablein any capacity. The decision aboutwhether or not to be an entrepreneuris partially about life choices, whichyou cannot predetermine. Take theexamples of Finland, Singapore,Taiwan, Ireland, or Israel. These arecountries that seem to display moreof a ‘problem solving’ mentalityamong its managers and general pop-ulation. Perhaps it’s a small popula-tion dynamic. People there will tendto not say to themselves that ‘thisproblem is too big for me because Idon’t have resources’ but instead,‘given the limited resources that Ihave how do I figure out a solution.’It’s an attitude. The interesting thingis that such an attitude already existsin Southern Germany. There are thou-sands of SMEs making high-endmachine tools, consumer goods,industrial products, and so on. That’swhat they have always done. So Iwould say the lesson for EasternGermany is to think less of replicatingSilicon Valley, and more of replicat-ing what’s on their door-step: themindset of the German South. �


#08 CFEINSIGHT8

I understand you are very critical ofsome aspects of current entrepre-neurship teaching at universities.

My main interest is in what is leftout, what is overlooked in currententrepreneurship teaching. Rightnow the main focus for governmentsupport for transfer of knowledgeinto entrepreneurship is hi-tech. Butthere are so many examples showingthat innovations are not just hi-tech.They come in all sorts and sizes. Youcan create a viable business modelusing ideas that have nothing to dowith hi-tech. Of course hi-tech is onesource but on its own it is too narrow.The historical principle on whichGerman universities have tended tooperate is that they are places whereyou do not just follow the conven-tions and prepare for practical life.They should also be places whereyou question tacit presuppositions.They should be raising difficult ques-tions about the status quo in everyrespect. Universities are not just cen-tres for research but also for devel-oping and debating new ideas.Questioning conventions is in itselfa highly fruitful way of creating newideas. In universities, people areyounger. They are less biased – or atleast they have different biases. Theyare more curious and more critical –and all this makes universities anexcellent breeding ground for newideas.

So what are you saying?

What I am saying is let’s use that! Let’suse the whole spectrum of the uni-

versities and not just focus on hi-techresearch. In Germany — and othercountries too I presume — the focus ofgovernment support for entrepre-neurship is inextricably bound up withhi-tech. It is all centred on turningresearch findings into patents andpatents into start-ups. Everyoneseems to agree that the best thing wecan do is teach how to put thatprocess into effect. But the wholething is much more difficult than peo-ple realise. It’s not about the quality ofa patent, or how sophisticated aresearch finding is – but aboutwhether or not it fits into marketdemands. A patent has to be trans-lated into a promising business model– an entrepreneurial concept “tuning”the patent in with market demands.That’s innovation in Schumpeter’ssense. Hence the crucial point is tocreate a promising entrepreneurialconcept. Patents can be one aspectamong others but they certainly arenot the only one. Such promising con-cepts can be distilled from many aca-demic fields or disciplines.

Give me some examples of whatyou mean?

Well, look at the company I founded 25 years ago – Tea Campaign(www.teekampagne.de). What does itdo? It questioned the conventions ofthe tea trade. We reduced the usualbroad spectrum commonly offered intraditional tea shops to one varietyonly. This enabled us to purchase onelarge amount instead of many smalllots of tea. This strategy allowed us tocircumvent all layers of middlemen. At

the same time we improved qualityby choosing the number one variety inthe world, the high-grown Darjeelingtea. It was such a comparatively sim-ple, non hi-tech concept but it revo-lutionized the tea market in Germany.Meanwhile we are the biggestimporter of Darjeeling in the world.

Or take a look at ebuero - a companyusing TeaCampaign as a model -which is now Germany’s marketleader in secretarial services(www.ebuero.de). It’s not hi-tech. It isjust a new concept breaking com-pletely with the conventions in thisfield. These are what I call conceptcreative models – initiatives based oncreative concepts not on hi-tech.

So that’s your first point – look atall types of innovation. What else?

My second point is to use existingcomponents. By components I don’tmean physical parts but entire sub-systems. What I mean is that you donot have to do everything yourself.The more you use existing compo-nents, the more efficiently and pro-fessionally your start-up will operate- from the beginning. For example, usea mail-order logistics business insteadof doing the packaging and mailingyourself. So much of your operationcan be outsourced and by doing so youhave a professional service right fromthe start, instead of expending all yourcapital and energy on being profes-sional yourself. Another great advan-tage is you keep your own brain freeto focus on the concept. You can runwhole companies like this. For exam-

Filling the gaps inentrepreneurship teaching

>>>

Interview with Günter Faltin, Professor of Entrepreneurship, Freie University, Berlin


CFEINSIGHT #08 9

You can read more about our work at www.entrepreneurship.de. I recommend the article on “Citizen Entrepreneurship”at http://labor.entrepreneurship.de/downloads/Citizen_E-Ship.pdf.

ple I am involved in another companycalled RatioDrink (www.ratiodrink.de).We have no office, no book-keeping.All the company does is to coordinatecomponents.

You are also a business angel?

I am a business angel to many otherstart-ups: As a rule we concentrate onthe business model, focussing not onthe hi-tech element or on how to raisecapital – but on the concept. And oncewe have the concept, then we arrangethe components in such a way thatwe do not need capital. We only paywhen we have orders. Very little cap-ital is needed. We do not need to go tobanks.

So the concept is everything?

Yes, and that is really my third point.Universities should not get boggeddown in teaching about businessadministration. What is necessary isto remove entrepreneurship from thisnarrow confine and the often closeassociation with business administra-tion, a too narrow paradigm for entre-preneurship. For entrepreneurship, youneed a good concept. But in universi-ties the focus is too often not on theconcept but on business administra-tion. The support for business foundersis built around all the conventionaltools – marketing, management andso on. I could give a huge list of what

a business founder is supposed toknow. It would overwhelm you. Mypoint is that when you use compo-nents, you do not need this focus.Business administration certainly isimportant, but it can be done via team-work or via outsourcing. All that stuff– the details, the tax issues and so on– all that can be done by other people.So university teaching should focus onconcept creation. Instead the stresstoday is on taking someone who is pre-sumed to have already had his or hergreat idea and teaching them businessprocesses. I am not saying these thingsdo not matter, but the founder shouldbe able to keep their brain clear for thereally important decisions.

What is your advice for entrepre-neurship teachers in universities?

Let go of the conventions of entrepre-neurship education. We shouldemphasise the concept and liberateteaching from the narrow confines ofbusiness administration. We need aDeclaration of Independence frombusiness administration. The potentialof universities is much broader.

It seems you want a completebreak from the commonly acceptedmethodology.

We need to break with convention.Everything that you see in the worldis built around convention. It may be

a new convention but it is still con-vention. My philosophy is aboutfocusing on function. For example inmy tea company, we had to ask our-selves how to get the tea from theplantation to the customer.Convention said there had to be auc-tions and importers and a wholeinfrastructure. We said: It ain’t nec-essarily so. I did not know a thingabout tea, but I could see there wasno need for a chain of middlemen.What we needed was a big enoughorder built around just one varietyand with that we went straight to theplantation. It was a very simple idea.So we were thinking about function,just like the Bauhaus movement did.Convention says that historicallythings function in a certain way butwe should focus on how they couldfunction differently. Universities canteach this. At universities people areless narrow-minded; they are notblinded by daily routine. They caneasily distinguish function from con-vention. �


#08 CFEINSIGHT10

How long has the University ofWismar been promoting entrepre-neurship?

We started in 2000 with a projectcalled INFEX. It was a very successfulproject that supported young studentsinterested in setting up their owncompanies.There were courses in thebasics as well as some more advancedmaterial, and we ran competitions.Many of our students were really inter-ested: between 2000 and 2008 therewere more than 100 new businessescreated in all sorts of different fieldssuch as product design, web design,software development, mechanicalengineering and so on. It was a realmixture. But we quickly identified oneproblem: we were only reaching thosestudents who were already interestedin entrepreneurship and business.Thousands of others were not gettingany exposure at all. So that is why thisyear we have started a new project.The basic idea is to address four main“pillars”. The first of these is the con-viction that entrepreneurship thinkingand acting is something for all stu-dents.This is really our medium-termgoal. Our aim is to get all students inall the basic curricula to come face-to-face with the skills needed forentrepreneurship. It should be onmathematics courses, on technologycourses — everywhere. Students in alldisciplines should be able to acquirethe skills to allow them to work in anentrepreneurial way in an existingcompany or to set up on their own.We want to inculcate in the minds ofstudents the idea that there is anothercareer choice. You do not have to be anemployee: you can set up on your own.

And what are the other three ‘pillars’?

The second pillar is directed at thosewho are really interested in gettinginto the subject. These students canaccess a number of extracurricularprogrammes.The third pillar is entre-preneurship education and empiricalresearch. We believe we have to lookinto ways of improving scientificresearch into the best ways of doingentrepreneurship. For this we needboth national and internationalbenchmarking, with cooperation frominternational partners.And the fourthpillar is about the management of theuniversity as a whole.This is the workof the Rector and the authorities. Wewant to be an entrepreneurial uni-versity. Too often you find that entre-preneurship courses are just anisolated part of the university pro-gramme. Often there is just one pro-fessor teaching a handful of students.We want an approach to entrepre-neurship that is both top-down andbottom-up – in other words co-ordi-nated from on top as well as all-embracing at the workface. Our visionis of being not just a typical universitybut an entrepreneurial university. Sowe have workshops for the teachingstaff and we focus on goals, resultsand future developments.

How do your “pillars” work in prac-tice?

We started this year with supportfrom the regional government and wenow have a unit that coordinatesentrepreneurship support for stu-dents. So now if a student expresses

interest in entrepreneurship, we havea single entry point. Everything is coor-dinated from inside this unit. Whatwe are trying to create is a synergybetween outside partners and theteams here in the university. But theywere not coordinated with the teach-ing programme and it created a lot ofproblems. What we want to do is coor-dinate an entrepreneurial mindset.

Why is it so important to speak toall students?

We advertised ourselves to all the stu-dent body, but we found we werereaching only five to seven percent ofthem. The others were not interested,so they got no support. What we wantto do is give every student the set ofskills to work in industry as an entre-preneur. We find that many studentshave ideas of their own but it hasnever occurred to them that theycould do things by themselves. Ourstate is not a very rich one. There is notmuch in the way of big industry. Weneed new ideas for development. Weneed to get the most out of the poten-tial of our students.

What are the main obstacles thatyou face?

What we have done is not an obviousroad to go down, because the wayGerman universities have developeddoes not help. For most of the post-war period there was a strict separa-tion between the academic andnon-academic streams. That is whymany on the teaching staff today areconcerned that they will be dominatedby industry and they are anxious to

Changing the entrepreneurial mindset through a four pillar approach

>>>

Interview with Professor Grünwald, Recor, University of Wismar


CFEINSIGHT #08 11

Helping students to become moreentrepreneurial in Poland

<<<

Interview with Prof. Krzystof Zieba, Gdansk University of Technology

How seriously is entrepreneurshipeducation taken at your university?

The faculty of management and eco-nomics is one of several faculties atthe university. It was founded in 1993,in other words just four years afterthe fall of the communist system and

the transformation to a market econ-omy. Indeed it was set up very muchas a response to the needs of the mar-ket. The initial aim was to educatepeople from a technological or engi-neering background in order to makethem aware of the realities of the busi-ness world. During Poland’s economic

transformation, many large state-owned companies collapsed. Thatgave an immediate impulse to the cre-ation of SMEs, and the problem of alack of entrepreneurship emerged. Ouranswer was to try to teach entrepre-neurship. Right now we have our reg-ular students, in other words the ones

defend their academic freedom. Ourtask is to involve everyone in devel-oping the new mindset.We have manyprofessors who are extremelyfavourable. We have many who areindifferent and go along with it. Butthere are also many who feel that theentrepreneurial university and closecooperation with industry are not inthe interests of the academic com-munity. The influence of this body isvery strong. And every German uni-versity that is re-focussing on entre-preneurship today is facing this sameproblem.

What would you say is the key tosuccess in your approach to entre-preneurship teaching?

What we do is make sure entrepre-neurship skills are integrated into ourteaching modules. For example, in acourse on mechanics we teach proj-ect management – it is integrated,inside the course. This is somethingcompletely new. Until recently suchsubjects were taught separately. Wewant to instil the basic ideas of entre-preneurship via our regular lecturesin maths, physics, design and so on. It

is possible to do so because the way inwhich we teach is via projects. In theseprojects students learn about entre-preneurship techniques. We call itintra-curricular. Then if we can con-vey to students the feeling that this issomething that could interest them,we open them up to deeper studies inextra-curricular courses. That way wehope we’ll end up with more start-ups.

What are the entrepreneurshipskills that you teach?

Any list would include leadershipskills, time-management, team-man-agement, project-management, com-munication skills and interculturalskills.These things can be taught. Forexample in mathematics we have acourse entitled “Modelling of survivaland sustainability”. In this the stu-dents do two projects. They have tocollect data – for example, environ-mental data about river pollution.They then have to analyse the data,find a mathematical model for it, finda solution, give a presentation and soon. So in that one course you haveteam-building, project management,etc. It’s intra-curricular.

All that must require staff whothemselves are trained.

Indeed. But here we have one bigadvantage. Around 95 percent of ourprofessors have a minimum of fiveyears previous industrial experience.This is very important and we also doin-house training and workshops.Maybe in the future we will havedidactic training because there arespecial ways for teaching entrepre-neurship. You have to do it via a proj-ect-oriented, hands-on approach.

What advice would you give to simi-lar faculties in other universities?

For me the most important point issimple: do not just work with the peo-ple who express the most interest inentrepreneurship. Deal with everyone.Too many people are still coming outof our schools who have never heardof entrepreneurship. But they consti-tute a vast reservoir of creativity. Wehave to be able to tap into all of thatpotential. Our region needs thatpotential in order to create wealth,make jobs, and to keep people fromleaving. �


#08 CFEINSIGHT12

who choose our faculty and decide tofollow the full course. On the otherhand we also have students fromother faculties – like biochemistry orship construction – who come overand do courses that last one or severalsemesters. We try not just to conveysome economic knowledge, but also toincorporate elements of entrepre-neurship education, so that they canuse their competences and combinethem with entrepreneurial knowledgeto start their own business.

How successful have you been?

Well it is not really for me to judge.But what I can say is that even thoughwe are the youngest faculty in the uni-versity, we are now the biggest innumber of students. We are very pop-ular among the student body. Anothermeasure of our success is that we arethe only faculty which offers mentorcourses for graduates from other fac-ulties. These students know that whenpeople who graduate from our facultyenter the labour market they arealmost certain to get a job. That clearlydemonstrates the success of the fac-ulty.

What are the main factors of thatsuccess?

There is one factor that sets us apartfrom similar faculties in other Polishuniversities — and that is the staff.We have a young staff that is highlyqualified. Another factor is theemphasis we place on cooperationwith students and student bodies. Weare always open to what they haveto say, and we follow their interests.There is a process of evaluation of allour courses so that the opinions ofstudents are monitored and weaccommodate their needs. A thirdelement is our work with businesses,notably via the local developmentagency. We want to get students intouch with real practitioners – so thatit is not just theory. It’s a way of

exposing them to something that isreal.

How important is entrepreneurshipresearch for your work?

Very important. We are a partner in alarge research programme focussingon Pomeranian enterprises. We usethe results of that research to under-stand the educational and compe-tence needs of existing entrepreneursand adapt our courses. We believe thatif our students want to start their ownbusinesses, they’ll face the same bar-riers as the entrepreneurs who arecurrently doing business in our region.

What are main obstacles you’vehad to overcome?

We should divide problems into twoseparate issues. On one side there arethe problems involved in supportingentrepreneurship and this is basicallya question of money. In the currenteconomic crisis, Polish universities arevery definitely feeling the pain.Finding the finances to maintainentrepreneurship programmes is areal headache. The other problem is amore general one in Poland. It is theattitude of staff and authorities to thevery idea of entrepreneurship andstarting one’s business. These nega-tive attitudes are rooted in the previ-ous system. For example if you areyourself an academic and you wantto start your own business, you needthe consent of the rector, the mainsupervisor of the university, and thisis sometimes very hard to obtain.Then there are problems about start-ing businesses based on inventionsmade in universities. Spin-off creation– this is still problematic. It is a men-tal blockage and it will take time toovercome. There is also a problemwith students. If you look at the soci-ological research, you can see thatpeople still perceive entrepreneurs tobe people who cannot be trusted, peo-ple who use others to get rich and so

on. Again that is something rooted inthe previous system.

Perhaps the situation is improving.This year we had a survey among thefirst year students. They were asked –do you intend to start your own busi-ness? Very impressively, more thanhalf of them said yes, either duringtheir studies, or immediately after, orafter some years acquiring experiencein the workplace. If you compare thosefigures with other countries, morethan 50 percent is really very large. Ofcourse they are first year students andI don’t seriously think that more thanhalf of them will actually start theirown business, but nonetheless itshows how mentalities are changing.

You call your course the entrepre-neurial “vehicle”. What does itconsist of?

One of the most important parts ofthe vehicle – the wheel if you like – ismeetings with business people. Weorganise these meetings every semes-ter and they are open to all studentsat the university. We use the meetingsto demonstrate to students that beingyour own boss can be attractive. Oftenthey face a choice of whether to enterthe labour market as employees or tobe their own boss. The meetings arethere to show them the advantagesof starting their own business. On ourcourses we teach them how to plan,how to market, how to do the finan-cial side and so on. But we also wantstudents to see that there are real peo-ple out there doing it, and that it istherefore a feasible life choice. Theprogramme has four parts. The firstwe call ‘Let’s talk business’. This iswhere we have the meetings withpractitioners, entrepreneurs and busi-ness-owners. We try to involve stu-dents from all faculties. Indeed we arealways trying to attract other studentsto do our masters course. It is a kindof popularisation of entrepreneurshipeducation.


CFEINSIGHT #08 13

The second part is a competition.Many universities around the worldhave business plan competitions. Wetry to make it a bit broader, with fourcategories: innovation and projectdevelopment; marketing plans; busi-ness plans; and project management.We see it is a way of promoting cre-ativity. It gives students the chance togain confidence. Business plans areextremely detailed, down-to-earththings. By creating them themselves,students learn that they are do-able. Itis all about self-belief.

The third aspect is the small businessspeciality, with training in SME andstart-up issues. This is deliveredessentially in English. We use our con-tacts with Erasmus students to give itan international identity and we try tobuild mixed teams of Polish and inter-national students in order to broadenperspectives.

And the last element is the link-up Imentioned with the PomeranianEconomic Observatory. Every twoyears there is a new publication of our

research – we are working on the nextone due to come out in 2010. In it, wegather data about the needs of entre-preneurs in our region. That way welearn how we can improve our edu-cation system so that graduates whostart their own businesses can avoidsome of the problems that have so farbeen endemic. �


#08 CFEINSIGHT14

What is your set-up at theTechnical University?

I am Head of EntrepreneurshipServices, which has a team of 14 peo-ple. We work on motivation, sup-porting entrepreneurship, puttingpeople in touch with support net-works, finding premises and so on.We are part of one of the biggest tech-nical universities in Germany, with28,000 students. The entrepreneur-ship part goes back 25 years, whenwe started one of the first businessincubators in Germany and it hassince developed in successive waves.The most recent development was in2004 when we started with theEntrepreneurship Centre. At the Halleseminar I set out some of our ideas,especially the emphasis we place onrelations with alumni.

So your former students play animportant role?

Exactly. We looked at what our start-ups need to ensure they get off on agood footing and we decided that thebest thing is for them to have twomentors. On the one hand we offer amentor from a scientific faculty –someone who is expert on the tech-nical questions and can offer adviceon that front. And on the other hand,we put the young entrepreneurs intouch with someone who has alreadystarted their own enterprise – inother words someone with businessexperience. What we do is try to finda business mentor who is in the samefield of technology as the start-up.

The business mentor can provideknowledge on a whole range ofissues: how to get money, how tobuild up networks, how to go to mar-ket and so on.

And these mentors are alumni.How do you locate them?

We have a huge alumni programme atthe Technical University (TU). Thereis a database with the names of peo-ple who have been at TU and gone onto found an enterprise. So this is agreat network and all we have to do isget in touch with them to ask for theirhelp. We offer a list of different activ-ities which alumni can pursue as away of offering their services.

How does it work?

First we set up a meeting between thestudent-entrepreneur and the alum-nus. The first thing is to see if they geton. After that it is really out of ourhands. We only started this pro-gramme a year ago, so it is impossibleto know just yet how well it is work-ing. Another thing we do is try to cre-ate the conditions for alumni to meetstart-ups. For instance we have anannual event called Alumni AngelAbend (Alumnus angel evening). Weask five of our top start-ups to makea pitch before the invited alumni, whothen have a chance to ask questions.Then they sit down to dinner, with thetables arranged according to differenttechnical fields like biotechnology orcar technology. The professors are alsothere. So it is a great way to create

exchanges and the alumni are them-selves very interested, because theyare after all in the world of innova-tion. They are also looking for newideas and people and this is one ofthe places where they can perhaps getthem.We have also had other ideas toget the message out that we are nur-turing entrepreneurship. For example,an exhibition of some of our successstories and a catalogue containingentrepreneur profiles.

When will you be able to assessthe success of your strategy?

It is still too early, but we have beenquestioning our alumni companiesevery two years since 2001. More than400 have answered and of them,75 percent say they would like to giveknowledge or know-how or moneyback to the university. So we knowthey are willing to support us but theprocess is only just beginning andwe’ll need a couple more years beforewe can evaluate it properly. Butalready we can get a feeling of howimportant it is. Before, the alumnifounders had no idea how to engagewith us. Now they can come and givetalks, or offer placements or get takenon as mentors.

So there are different ways inwhich alumni can get involved?

We offer them a list of possible activ-ities. They can take part in lectures.Or they can get involved in our sum-mer course. Or they can come andtalk informally to students. Students

Mentoring Entrepreneurs at theEntrepreneurship Centre in Berlin

>>>

Interview with Agnes Von Matuschka, Head of the Entrepreneurship Centre, Gründungsservice, at the TechnicalUniversity of Berlin


CFEINSIGHT #08 15

here are not so clued up on entre-preneurship, especially students inthe technical and natural sciences. Ifyou invite them to a lecture on it, theyare sceptical. But if you have an ex-student who comes with some supernew machine, it’s an excellent wayof exposing them to the idea of start-ing their own business. And this iswhat we want. Many of our studentsstill think the ideal is to join a bigcompany like Siemens. So the alumnican act as ambassadors. We wantthem to be role-models for the stu-dent body. That’s the way we promotethem – like with the exhibition andthe brochure. We also have a Googlemap showing all the sites near TUwhere alumni have created compa-nies. That way, students can see thescale of alumni entrepreneurship. Wealso offer alumni a chance to do theirrecruiting at TU. They have access to

a database at the university to putup job offers. But the university hasto invest in this. The methods forkeeping in touch– constructing data-bases, keeping up the network – allrequires staff and money.

So where do your funds come from,the University?

Only a small part. Right now ourmoney is third-party money – it comesfrom the government – but the day willcome when it runs out. So we need todevelop a structure of sponsorship,and we need to be professional aboutit.We want to sell to our alumnus com-panies the notion that entrepreneur-ship is good for the economy andsociety and that young companiesneed help in their early phases to findfinancing and premises and so on. Soit is in their interest to sponsor us.

You participated in the OECD LEEDproject. What did you gain from it?

Our involvement in the OECD LEEDproject really showed us the meta-level of our work, something that iseasily lost in the day-to-day work. Wegot insights from how universityentrepreneurship support works else-where in Europe and the USA. The dis-cussions with the members of thereview team signalled potential oppor-tunities, in particular on how tomobilise and activate students andwould-be-entrepreneurs. Anotherresult of the project was increasedcommunication with policy makersin Berlin. We were able to expose ourchallenges to the responsible govern-ment organisation, in our case theSenate Administration. Thanks verymuch to LEED for the possibility toparticipate. �

SMEs, Entrepreneurship and Innovation

<<<

By Pier Carlo Padoan, OECD Deputy Secretary General, in charge of the OECD Innovation Strategy

Creativity in SMEs is critical to a newgrowth paradigm where innovationis not driven simply by basic scientificresearch but by a process of collabo-ration among many players. Oureconomies and policies have to adjustto enable this new creativity and inno-vation to emerge through renewedentrepreneurial culture, new skills forentrepreneurship and support forspin-offs.

The OECD is helping governmentsmake this transition by developing anInnovation Strategy to design moreeffective innovation policies that willstrengthen productivity and long term

growth, as well as meeting global chal-lenges such as climate change. We arelooking at the traditional and the newfoundations of the innovation process:human capital, entrepreneurship, therole of universities and research insti-tutions, knowledge markets and infra-structures. This effort will result in acomprehensive strategy to be deliv-ered to Ministers in 2010 and whichwill include a set of policy principlesthat will harness innovation in the 21stcentury.

As part of this exercise, the OECDCentre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs andLocal Development (CFE) is preparing

a flagship publication on SMEs,Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Thebook, to be published early in 2010, willanalyse the role of new entrepreneur-ial ventures and SMEs in innovation. Itwill also examine how national andlocal governments and developmentagencies can boost innovation byimproving the environment for entre-preneurship and increasing the capa-bilities of new and small firms toinnovate, understanding the factorsdriving it forward - or holding it back- and the implications for policy.

The book will include a set of interna-tionally comparable data on SMEs,


#08 CFEINSIGHT16

Newsletter produced with the participation of Agnes von Matuschka, Günther Faltin,Norbert Grünwald, Phillip Phan, Krzyzstof Zieba, Wolfgang Tiefensee and WolfgangHelmstädter, Pier Carlo Padoan, Sergio Arzeni, Andrea-Rosalinde Hofer, JonathanPotter, Enikö Soujon, Irena Jatro, Austin Delaney, Hugh Schofield and Lucy Clarke.

For more information on CFE activities, events and publications, please [email protected]

entrepreneurship and innovation anda review of major policies and new pol-icy developments in this field in eachcountry examined. Through three the-matic chapters, three novel, but crit-ical, aspects of policies for SMEinnovation and innovative entrepre-

Higher Education andEntrepreneurship

Stimulating innovative andgrowth-oriented entrepreneurshipis a key economic and societalchallenge to which universitiesand colleges have much to con-tribute. This book examines therole that higher education institu-tions are currently playing throughteaching entrepreneurship and

transferring knowledge and innovation to enterprises anddiscusses how they should develop this role in the future.The key issues, approaches and trends are analysed andcompared across a range of countries, from the experiencesof the most entrepreneurial universities in North Americato advanced European models and emerging practices inCentral and Eastern Europe.

It is clear that entrepreneurship engagement is a rapidlyexpanding and evolving aspect of higher education thatrequires proper support and development. The book stressesthe need to expand existing entrepreneurship efforts andintroduce more creative and effective approaches, build-ing on the best practices highlighted from around the world.It will provide inspiration for those in higher educationseeking to expand and improve their entrepreneurshipteaching and knowledge-transfer activities, and for policymakers who wish to provide appropriate support initia-tives and frameworks.

Clusters, Innovation andEntrepreneruship:

This publication explores the suc-cess of major innovation andentrepreneurship clusters in OECDcountries, the challenges they nowface in sustaining their positionsand the lessons for other placesseeking to build successful clus-ters. What are the key factors forcluster success? What problems

are emerging on the horizon? Which is the appropriate roleof the public sector in supporting the expansion of clustersand overcoming the obstacles?

The book addresses these and other issues, analysing seveninternationally reputed clusters in depth: Grenoble in France,Vienna in Austria, Waterloo in Canada, Dunedin in NewZealand, Medicon Valley in Scandinavia, Oxfordshire in theUnited Kingdom, and Madison, Wisconsin, in the UnitedStates. For each cluster, it looks at the factors that have con-tributed to its growth, the impact of the cluster on localentrepreneurship performance, and the challenges faced forfurther expansion. It also puts forward a set of policy rec-ommendations geared to the broader context of clusterdevelopment.

This publication is essential reading for policy makers, prac-titioners and academics wishing to obtain good practices incluster development and guidance on how to enhance theeconomic impact of clusters.

neurship will be examined: the placeof new and small firms in global andlocal knowledge flows and the policyactions to support them; the need foreducation and training systems to bet-ter foster the growth of the human cap-ital for entrepreneurship and small

firm innovation, including through theformulation and teaching of entrepre-neurship skills; and, the importance ofsocial enterprises to foster social inno-vation and the need for an evolution inthe institutional frameworks to facili-tate their contribution. �

Further reading:


insight gb 8:insight gb 6

Documents