ACE Initiative

The Accelerating Campus Entrepreneurship (ACE) Initiative is a joint collaboration of Institute of Technology Blanchardstown, Cork Institute of Technology, Sligo Institute of Technology and National University of Ireland Galway and is being led by Dundalk Institute of Technology.

Ireland has been traditionally dependent upon Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) which accounts for 80% of its industrial output and exports. A high cost base is however eroding the competitiveness of its traditional industries; there is less mobile investment and Ireland’s attractiveness as an EU location is under threat. Indigenous industries are finding it increasingly difficult to compete. Their R&D activity is limited and indigenous economic growth is dominated by consumer spending and the property market.

To have a vibrant, successful knowledge economy, Ireland needs to increase the number and quality of indigenous companies and create graduates who are entrepreneurial thinkers doers particularly those graduates who have not had a business education.

For the purposes of this proposal entrepreneurship is viewed as a process which starts with opportunity recognition, involves the acquisition of the resources to exploit an opportunity in terms of technology, finance and people and results in a new or more valuable venture. The basic assumption is that the knowledge and skills required to engage in this process can be taught and that the teaching of these skills has sound educational merit. Students who engage actively in the programmes will be more confident of their sense of judgment; will be more adept at decision-making and ideas generation and resourceful in making these ideas a reality. These skills have obvious application in the setting up of a new business but are equally valuable in all organisations in the public and private sector where the need for innovation is becoming more compelling (intrapreneurship). It is within this context that Government policy recognises the growing importance of the Third Level educational sector in addressing low levels of entrepreneurship creation and development.

Aligning Higher Education with this goal requires the development of new approaches to entrepreneurship education. Yet despite the Irish government investing over €40m in new or expanded on-campus Incubation facilities, the number of start-ups resulting from student/graduate enquiries is low. A number of contributing factors include a lack of entrepreneurial training on most undergraduate and postgraduate programmes and in particular technology based disciplines, the absence of tangible links between campus incubators/technology transfer offices and academic programmes, little evidence of collaborations between Schools and a lack of focus on graduates as potential employers.

The traditional approaches to teaching entrepreneurship are not suited to the challenge for a number of reasons:

• Most entrepreneurship courses are underpinned by the ‘business-plan’. Growing evidence suggests that successful entrepreneurs depend more on their ability to be able to adjust flexibly to the marketplace and less on formal business planning.
• Traditional faculty structures and programmes are at odds with the holistic approach required to support entrepreneurship.
• Entrepreneurial learning is acquired on a ‘how-to’ basis through the processes of ‘doing, ‘problem-solving’, ‘learning from others’, ‘making mistakes’ and ‘pursuing opportunities’; the lack of real-world and problem-based learning needs to be incorporated into entrepreneurial education.
• The traditional approach does not teach ‘know-who’, i.e. the management of relationships or gives the student a sense of what it ‘feels’ like to be an entrepreneur.

This is reflected in the Research Report published by National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship when it identifies that:

“there is widespread reluctance with technology departments to work with Business Studies departments. A view that Business School teaching is too theoretical and “in-depth” and a perception that Business School teaching is “chalk and talk” – a style which is believed to “put off” many students”.

The National Development Plan highlights that “the enterprise sector is of vital importance to the economy and Ireland’s long term economic success will depend on the continuing strength of our enterprise base”.

Enterprise Strategy Group’s Report (2005) Ahead of the Curve recommends measures to embed entrepreneurship at all levels of the education system and to enhance entrepreneurship as a career option.

The Expert Group On Future Skills Needs 2007 - Tomorrow’s Skills Towards a National Skills Strategy - identified, based on National and International academic evidence, communication, interpersonal, team working, customer services, collecting and organising information, problem solving, planning and organising, learning to learn, innovation, creative and enterprise attributes as essential skill. In addition, it highlighted that “ higher levels of educational attainment drive innovation and productivity and increase levels of entrepreneurship within the economy”.

In the recently published Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, 2006 findings show that when people have some experience of entrepreneurial activity their fear of failure is, as an inhibitor to entrepreneurial activity, greatly reduced. This has implications for the education sector and for giving students experience of entrepreneurship in a “safe” environment.

The recently published Report of Small Business Forum highlights the importance of “enhancing the culture of entrepreneurship” and goes on to highlight that “there is currently no co-ordinated national approach to encourage or support entrepreneurship, and there is no systematic programme of entrepreneurship education at primary, secondary and third levels”.

It provides innovative approaches to entrepreneurship education to ensurestudents from technology[1] programmes take enterprise related modules with the student gaining experience of what it is like to run and operate real businesses and in this way promoting self-employment as a real, attractive and viable career option.

This proposal addresses the contexts quoted above by embedding entrepreneurial education in technology disciplines through a four-targeted approach as follows:

• Targeted Action 1:
  • Pedagogies, Teaching and Curriculum Development.

• Targeted Action 2:
  • Cross-Faculty Multi-disciplinary approach.

• Targeted Action 3:
  • Embedding Technology Entrepreneurship into Engineering Education, leveraging ofnon-curriculum activities from incubation/technology transfer offices.

• Targeted Action 4:
  • Educational Organisation and Culture Change towards the development of moreEntre- and Intra-preneurial approaches.

The process of embedding entrepreneurship requires a fundamental organisational and cultural change complemented by the use of new cross-institutional and cross-disciplinary pedagogical methodologies. This process will require a re-orientation of traditional models and the development of the new staff skills and competencies. The active involvement of industry and entrepreneurs will assist in embedding these innovative approaches.

Dundalk Institute of Technology has secured funding for this project totalling €3,976,000 of which 50% is SIF Funding and 50% is match funding from the Project Partners.

For more information visit: www.aceinitiative.ie.

Click here to find out more about DkIT Student Enterprise.

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[1]For the purposes of this proposal, technology is defined as encompassing such disciplines as science, engineering and technology and other non-business related disciplines.