Entrepreneurial Campus: report

4 Actions/Recommendations

In the following section we provide recommendations and actions for how to build a successful entrepreneurial campus. We see some of the activities described present in a number of our institutions who are already demonstrating entrepreneurial success. However, across all institutions, we see an opportunity to collaborate, evolve and adopt the attributes and behaviours that have led others to globally recognised levels of positive economic impact.

Theme 1: Align and interact with your regional ecosystem and external partners to accelerate

By focusing and aligning our entrepreneurial activity around our regional plans we will amplify the impact of our efforts. Working across the academic and private sectors will also drive breakthrough innovation and deliver impactful solutions.

Theme 1 - Regional Alignment

Action 1 (All Stakeholders)

Develop an aligned "place based" approach that forges close links and strong industrial collaborations across your regional stakeholders

• Balance national economic growth objectives with regional economic diversity through regional and city deals funding/Innovate KTN place based funding etc.
• Align with existing clusters e.g., Tech clusters (Scottish Cluster Ecosystem Alliance - SCEA)
• Build sector specific alliances that support a specific regional focus
• Create international collaboration and links based on regional/sector focus
• Align activities and share knowledge across colleges, universities and private sector incubators, accelerators, and venture studios within your region/neighbourhood
• Locate specific programmes where the relevant seat of industry is located (e.g., Media Studies at MIT is based in New York as opposed to Boston).

Theme 1 - Regional Alignment

Action 2 (Institutions)

Collaborate and align across institutions within a region sharing programmes and initiatives rather than replicating them on each site

This is particularly important where:

• Subject mix of a particular institution is limited and would benefit from a variety of inputs (eg. Institutions may offer business studies but not computer science etc.)
• Institutions are small and do not have the resources required to evolve an EC
• Institutions with established experience in entrepreneurship education should share resources with others at a local or regional level
• The pathways for students are aligned around the student journey. With a third of students in Scottish universities articulating from colleges, it is important that entrepreneurial interventions and teaching are aligned in a user-centric way (eg 2+2 courses between colleges and universities, shared extra-curricular activities, access to competitions for both colleges and universities).

Theme 1 - Regional Alignment

Action 3 (Institutions)

Simplify and enable access to academics for businesses looking to innovate

• Enhance business engagement by ensuring that the interface between institutions and businesses is stupidly simple
• Learn from MediaX, the industrial affiliate program that brought Stanford and industry together on a range of topics that combined issues of human performance with technological solutions. (Note: MediaX has recently published its 'playbook' outlining how it achieved success over 21 years)
• Coordinate/align the activities of Interface, SG Innovation Centres and Innovate KTP relative to our EC agenda.

Theme 1 - Regional Alignment

Action 4 (Techscalers/Institutions)

Map and align the activities of Scotland's Techscalers and local/regional institutions

• Facilities and programmes
• Extra-curricular activities
• Learning and teaching/curriculum.

Theme 1 - Regional Alignment

Action 5 (Institutions)

Provide access for graduates and local entrepreneurs to your institution's incubator programme and campus resources

• Offer aspiring graduate/local entrepreneurs free or low-cost space and high-quality business support along with connections to local, national, and international business networks
• Encourage more graduates to remain local, boosting regional economic growth and job creation as well as give back to their local university or college.

Theme 1 - Regional Alignment

Action 6 (Government)

Investigate how Venture Studios/3rd party Incubators/accelerators might support the Scottish entrepreneurial ecosystem

• Review existing Venture Studio offerings
• Review the learnings and approaches that can be taken from programmes such as CivTech.

Theme 2: Inspire young people to engage in entrepreneurial thinking through social and impact-led activities

Inspiring young people to engage with and develop an entrepreneurial mindset is a critical first step in raising the bar around entrepreneurial education. Social impact and wider impact creation can be used as a 'hook' to inspire young people to consider entrepreneurial activity more generally.

Theme 2 - Inspire

Action 7 (Institutions)

Broaden the focus of entrepreneurial activity to include social and impact-led entrepreneurship as part of 'mainstream' entrepreneurship teaching and support

• Curriculum Development drawing on global standards and best practice
• Programme support and development: e.g. Entrepreneurial competitions, challenges and other early engagement activities to embrace impact and ESG – e.g. Social Investment Scotland (SIS) are strategic impact partners to Converge; and advisors to Scottish EDGE. These activities should be extended
• Particular consideration should be given to making programmes attractive and accessible to all. These early interventions should encourage entrepreneurial activity by people that are currently under-represented in start-up and business growth activity
• Structured support on diversity, ESG and impact. Interventions should be part of a systematic approach to entrepreneurship (both academic teaching and co-curricular experience).

Theme 2 - Inspire

Action 8 (Government'/Agencies/Institutions)

Provide a range of funding to our emerging social and impact-led businesses

• Provide funding to SIS (or similar) to develop the entrepreneurial activities above
• Align existing and future funding in social and impact-led businesses with regional and educational funding of entrepreneurship
• Universities invest in social ventures/enterprises. Eg. Edinburgh University is an investor in the SIS-led Scottish Social Growth Fund, which provides debt funding for social enterprises. There is a potential to de-risk investments and attract other investors, building an unique fund, or range of financial grant/loan/equity blended products, eg: Northern Gritstone investment vehicle Northern Gritstone – The value of ideas (northern-gritstone.com).

Theme 2 - Inspire

Action 9 (Institutions)

Work with organisations like (SIS) to leverage the full potential of combined networks

• Local communities – individuals, third sector organisations, social enterprises, and local business. Includes supporting Community Wealth Building and place-based approaches (focus on engaging with communities experiencing multiple disadvantages). We note the activity of Preston City Council in this area
• Students, teaching, and support staff (past and present) and alumni. Allow those gaining life experience to develop their enterprising ideas
• Joining up social entrepreneurial activity across regional communities: eg SIS's Retail Academy – Connecting buyer teams (including a university procurement team) to social enterprises.

Theme 2 - Inspire

Action 10 (Institutions)

Maximise use of regional and national resources/assets to progress positive social and environmental outcomes

Our institutions present a significant opportunity for creating social and environmental value through re-imaging how they approach the full range of their activities. Some success areas which could be amplified include:

• Incubators and support for innovation
• Research staff and teams supporting impact propositions particularly through research expertise and impact evidence
• Knowledge exchange
• Tech transfer
• Procurement – social, local and fairtrade supply chains broker activity
• Onsite retail units – preference for social/local suppliers
• Campus events and festivities – providing opportunity to showcase social and local supply chain and initiatives.

Theme 2 - Inspire

Action 11 (Government)

Create a National Centre for Social and Impact-led Entrepreneurship that provides services to institutions, helping them to develop their social entrepreneurship offerings. The Centre would:

• Connect 16+ education campuses with social entrepreneurship expertise, facilitating access to knowledge, expertise, industry placements, social supply chains
• Signpost and provide funding mechanisms. There is interest from the university sector in exploring funding models, driven partly by the wealth of some universities via their own endowments, and student-led pressure to ensure these are invested responsibly
• Inspire and support the student body & teaching teams etc to develop impactful enterprising activities that maximise positive social, environmental, and economic outcomes for the people of Scotland, and beyond.

Theme 3: Establish institutional policies that support the development of an entrepreneurial mindset in students and staff

Many of the successful institutions have taken decades to develop their entrepreneurial offering (e.g. MIT – 50+ years!). In Scotland, we have the opportunity to learn from these institutions and accelerate the development of our ECs. We need to adopt policies that drive rapid evolution and development of entrepreneurial activities over a far shorter period of time. Those institutions who have developed at pace have senior leadership that have prioritised the development of an entrepreneurial mindset across their institution, funding activities and fostering behaviours in line with their institutions mission.

Theme 3 - Leadership

Action 12 (Institutions)

Senior leadership prioritise the development of an entrepreneurial mindset across their institution creating a culture that embraces entrepreneurship amongst students, staff, and academics

• Raising the profile of achievements in entrepreneurship, rewarding staff accordingly and providing academic pathways across all of the following:
  • Industrial collaboration
  • Start-up facilitation
  • Teaching
  • Research.
• Encourage and reward diversity of thoughts amongst academics through gaining experience in start-ups, scale-ups and other external bodies, but strongly encourage them to return to academia to share the knowledge gained and continue with their research
• Develop locally relevant, entrepreneurial focused, KPI's and assign accountability
• Celebrate entrepreneurialism and entrepreneurs and create a dynamic and energetic culture that actively encourages students & staff to explore start-up ideas
• Encourage experimentation with different approaches to entrepreneurial development (testing new courses, extra-curricular activities etc).

Theme 3 - Leadership

Action 13 (Institutions)

Ensure that staffing levels (including external mentors and advisors) support the potential for entrepreneurial behaviour across the institution

Eg: Imperial College London (ICL) has c. 20 staff actively supporting student enterprise. Staff members actively connect with 1 in 8 students at the institution. This level of staffing excludes mentors and expert advisors (of which there are c. 140 at ICL).

Theme 3 - Leadership

Action 14 (Institutions)

Create an organisational structure and accountabilities that strengthen entrepreneurial teaching and support in your institution

Individuals who are given the accountability for developing entrepreneurship across an institution also require accountability for (or strong influence over) the key foundational elements of entrepreneurialism including: innovation, research and alumni/business engagement and fundraising.

Theme 3 - Leadership

Action 15 (Government)

Partner with, and leverage, government funded/3rd sector organisations that have relevant expertise

Extend funding to enable organisations to engage directly with institutions and advise/deliver service/training programmes that support entrepreneurial learning. Organisations include:

• Civtech
• Social Entrepreneurship: Social Investment Scotland (SIS)
• The Lens
• Codeclan
• etc.

Theme 4: All students undertake credit bearing courses in support of entrepreneurial development as well as set and optional cross-faculty, practical entrepreneurial learning opportunities during their student journey

Develop a curriculum that delivers high quality entrepreneurial education

Theme 4 - Curriculum

Action 16 (Institutions)

Offer high-quality, credit bearing entrepreneurial courses to all students and postgraduates. Courses should:

• Inspire and encourage the development of an entrepreneurial mindset
• Deliver specific entrepreneurial skills (internet economy, product development etc.)
• Promote social and impact-led entrepreneurship
• Be tailored to support regional/sector aims.

Theme 4 - Curriculum

Action 17 (Institutions)

Attract and develop high quality computer science students by providing flexible pathways into education. eg:

• Offering Modern and Graduate Apprenticeships in CS
• Broadening frameworks to include UX, design and product development techniques
• Increase the number of 2+2 courses shared between colleges and universities within a region.

Theme 4 - Curriculum

Action 18 (Institutions)

Technology students should be taught the fundamentals of the internet economy through case studies of tech start-ups and be exposed to internet economy best practice in product development. Leverage external organisations such as CodeClan and our Techscaler network in delivering capability eg:

• Personal development (eg: ideas generation, team development, interpersonal/soft skills, career application)
• Product definition and delivery (eg: UX design, Prototype development, no-code/low-code, product market fit, market research, strategy)
• Venture development (spectrum of capabilities that are required to scale an organisation).

Theme 4 - Curriculum

Action 19 (Institutions)

Students have access to a significant number of co-curricular, cross-faculty, entrepreneurial based courses including learning about tools/techniques and have the opportunity to apply their learning in lab-based/project based/internships.

• Offer students full semester courses focused specifically on high tech entrepreneurialism
• Align extra and co-curricular activities creating a natural reinforcement loop.

Theme 4 - Curriculum

Action 20 (Institutions)

Students participate in interdisciplinary/joint undergraduate projects

Encourage interdisciplinary working between different faculties/schools and disciplines (eg joint projects between computer science students and business school students etc).

Theme 4 - Curriculum

Action 21 (Institutions)

Provide field trips and learning experiences to regions where best practice is demonstrated (e.g. Silicon Valley).

Theme 4 - Curriculum

Action 22 (Institutions)

Offer courses in social and impact-led entrepreneurship alongside conventional "For Profit" Entrepreneurship

Students are taught global standards and practices for Impact Management, particularly in relation to impact investing.

• Financial services (social and impact investing including impact management, measurement, and practice; ESG investing)
• Business studies (teaching presents social and impact-led models as standard; how responsible business practices are embedded across business operations eg: people, environment, supply chain, local community, charitable activities and cross-cutting diversity and governance)
• Tech-based enterprises should include data integrity, security, protection from online exploitation
• Economics – Wellbeing economy, Donut Economics and Impact economy
• Students study community wealth-building approaches, models, implementations, and alternatives within co-partners (e.g. community banks, community housing land trust, cooperative, etc.). These experiences are formally linked to curriculum and learning at all levels, and they are not merely seen as "community service."

Theme 4 - Curriculum

Action 23 (Institutions)

Ensure every opportunity is taken to review course content across all faculties, integrating entrepreneurial thinking, teaching, and approaches where applicable

• Potential for adding in broad as well as specific interventions
• Students themselves or student societies should initiate changes, nudging the institution in that direction (as happened in MIT).

Theme 5: Provide a systematic approach to extra-curricular support for student start-ups

Increase the range and number of user-centric extra-curricular entrepreneurial interventions available to students and staff across our institutions (e.g. events and programmes). A potential benchmark is Imperial College London Student Enterprise Lab which engages with 1 in every 8 students at the Institution over the period of an academic year.

Theme 5 – Extra-curricular support

Action 24 (Institutions)

Provide structured, open, and extensive access for staff, students and graduates to entrepreneurial extra-curricular support not constrained by location, background, or personal circumstances

• Adopt a systematic approach:
  • Inspire
  • Explore
  • Learn the fundamentals
  • Apply the learnings
  • Accelerate growth.
• Provide a start-up incubator programme that provides students, graduates and staff access to high quality inputs and facilities including:
  • Learning and development programmes
  • A community of like-minded individuals
  • Access to tools and equipment (see below)
  • Access to mentors and advisors (see below).
• Provide access to people with knowledge, experience and expertise (in specific roles, eg EIRs, Venture Mentors). At Imperial College, students and staff have access to over 140 experts or mentors supporting start-ups. Note: Significant work is being done by Civtech developing a Mentor Guide and this should be leveraged across our institutions.
• Provide infrastructure (physical and virtual). Provide students and graduates access to high quality start-up incubators, labs, communities/ platforms etc. Students and staff also have physical and/or virtual access to social infrastructure to exchange ideas, learn from each other and collaborate across specialisms and domains. Assets might include:
  • 3D printers
  • Computing power
  • Knowledge resources such as IP training, finance, and product development knowledge etc
  • Mentors
  • Work-space, etc.
• Create a register of assets, resources and services that are freely available to students, staff, and local entrepreneurs.
• Recognise the benefits of supporting diversity and inclusivity. This includes all areas of diversity, eg. gender, thinking styles, culture and socio-economic background etc. Interventions should be congruent with the needs of the local area/region/community. Examples might include addressing:
  • gender balance:
    • WE Innovate @ ICL WE Innovate - Imperial Enterprise Lab
    • WE Accelerate @ ICL WE Accelerate - Imperial Enterprise Lab
  • economically challenged areas and the profile of students making up the institution's population – eg UWS
• Facilitate student cross-society activities (eg running joint events and initiatives between the "Entrepreneurial Society" and "Computer Club" etc.
• Invite Alumni and local entrepreneurs to engage with students considering starting or running a start-up.

Theme 5 – Extra-curricular support

Action 25 (Government)

Establish and scale a national, cross institution competition for start-ups and spin-outs

Create/evolve a national competition that encourages and rewards both student start-ups and academic spin-outs. Competitions can be themed (similar to CivTech Challenges) or simply open to all "institution based" start-ups. One possibility is scaling out the Converge Challenge. Going forward Converge is looking at how it can evolve and adapt to a changing environment. Potential changes include:

• Extending the challenge to the college network (students and staff)
• Consolidate its regional model of engagement to ensure broader geographic participation
• Strengthen support for its cohorts and further develop the training programme etc.
• Consider multi-year funding to secure larger, more diverse, and ambitious cohorts.

Theme 5 – Extra-curricular support

Action 26 (Institutions)

Create opportunities for CS students to experience developing products/prototypes as well as deliver a prototyping service

Several Scottish universities have established in-house software services that provide cost effective prototype development capability to both internal and external clients.

• Hire student software engineers to undertake commissioned projects. Students should be managed and mentored by professional software project managers or a member of academic staff. Projects supported include funded research and impact projects within a university through to providing consulting and development support to SMEs, social enterprises, and charities. University software services fill a gap in the market, providing low-cost, lightweight but reliable development capabilities that support impact focused collaborations, whilst providing students with valuable and paid work experience.
• Scale this capability via Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA). Establish services at 14 SICSA member institutions through a federated hub-and-spoke model.
• Enable very early-stage start-ups, whether university based or external, to access small amounts of funding to enable prototype software development work to take place (See Theme 8 - Funding below). This capability would enable start-ups to road test and enhance their business model, seek additional investment based on the results and accelerate the growth of the start-up ecosystem in Scotland – as well as providing an opportunity for CS students to engage and learn.

Theme 5 – Extra-curricular support

Action 27 (Government)

Launch a National Summer School for tech start-ups

As part of the fully immersive "Acceleration" Phase of entrepreneurial learning we see the success of Summer Schools such as the Tranzfuser initiative from the UK Games Talent and Finance CIC). A similar approach should be taken to address the broader tech sector, providing a focal point for early-stage IDEs. Teams taking part would have access to funding, an academy with bespoke learning materials, industry expertise, pitch development support, dedicated showcase floorspace, and the chance to pitch for prize money (c.£20k in the case of Tranzfuser). The opportunity will be:

• Challenge-based
• Independent, i.e. not attached to a particular college or university - nationally funded
• Be open to UK-wide (and further afield? applications but remain based in Scotland
• Provide winners with a pathway to entry into the pre-scaler and Techscaler network
• Ensure attendees are being paid during the period of the summer competition; experience from Tranzfuser indicates that the best graduates are more likely to be retained in the programme if this is the case.

Further example of a summer school: ICL Summer Accelerator - Imperial Enterprise Lab

Theme 5 – Extra-curricular support

Action 28 (Institutions)

Deliver a range of extracurricular activities focused on grand challenges and creative problem solving

e.g.: Durham University Game Changer Innovation Programme | Department of Economic and Social Affairs, recognised as best practice by the UN in implementing SDG initiatives. The success of this programme has led to the production of a toolkit allowing the programme to be replicated in other institutions. To date it has been shared with over 35 universities including Princeton and Yale, with the ambition to collaborate on activity to increase engagement with the SDGs in higher education and ultimately driving entrepreneurialism.

Theme 5 – Extra-curricular support

Action 29 (Institutions)

Make available more computer science and entrepreneurial internships to students

Provide simple access to: internships (for students) and, to interns themselves (for the host organisations). Encourage partner organisations to put forward opportunities for students. This will involve some level of flexibility in terms of time and subject flexibility from the student and institution.

• Increase the number of technology-based start-up and scale-up internships available to students.
  • Note: SDS are working on a project to look at how this might work
  • Engage with all sizes of organisation to establish intern opportunities
  • Provide grant support to start-ups who take on interns, provided they meet certain quality standards in the provision of those internships
  • Work with and support Entrepreneurial Scotland Saltire Scholars and AAI Employability and other similar organisations to increase the number of available tech based internships, particularly targeting international tech scale-ups
  • Continue to support and develop project based placements across the tech industry (again - targeting tech scale-ups) providing work placement experience for students through organisations such as E-Placement Scotland.

Theme 5 – Extra-curricular support

Action 30 (Government/Institutions)

Develop/grow institution-based start-up events similar to SLUSH

Slush Helsinki is based at Aalto University, Finland. Aalto is an interesting university to reference as it has the following characteristics:

• Heavily student lead and student driven entrepreneurship
• Non prescriptive and experimental
• Well-funded with multiple programmes
• Focuses on ideation and collaboration
• Hosts SLUSH - "The World's Leading Start-up Event" - a key showcase for student and graduate start-ups
• VCs and trade journalists pay to attend
• Has a number of anchor organisations including Rovio, Microsoft
• Considerable disciplinary mix
• Contains Engineering, Arts & Business Schools resulting in an interesting fusion of mindsets.

Theme 6: Develop (and engage with) an active alumni network and your local entrepreneurial community

Successful ECs recognise the value of external input in supporting entrepreneurial development opportunities and provide access to experts.

Theme 6 – External/Expert Advice

Action 31 (Institutions)

• Connect, and create meaningful relationships, with your entrepreneurial alumni and local entrepreneurial community
• Invest in alumni relations recognising entrepreneurial alumni as a vital resource for the establishment and growth of entrepreneurial mindsets in the student and staff populations
• Encourage and actively engage with your local entrepreneurial community
• Promote student start-ups and spin-outs to the alumni / local community providing opportunities for students and staff to showcase their businesses directly to experienced entrepreneurs
• Create specific programmes that recognise that the interests of entrepreneurial alumni and local entrepreneurs are often different to those of other alumni
• Create a defined programme of entrepreneurial activity. Successful engagements with entrepreneurial alumni and local entrepreneurs are only effective if the institution has defined a strategy for entrepreneurial activity (i.e. the institution has a shopping list of activities similar to those listed in the Trust Centre activity illustration in Section 3 Theme 4 above). It is important to be clear on what is "the ask" of the alumni and local entrepreneurs.

Theme 6 – External/Expert Advice

Action 32 (Institutions)

Build a database of entrepreneurial alumni expertise that can be easily accessed and interrogated

We see similar and effective databases in the private sector e.g. JP Morgan Chase Alumni founded Companies: https://www.crunchbase.com/hub/jp-morgan-chase-alumni-founded-companies that provides a list of organisations founded by former employees of JP Morgan Chase.

Theme 6 – External/Expert Advice

Action 33 (Institutions)

Create roles within the institution that facilitate easy access to alumni as advisors and mentors - including:

• Entrepreneur in Residence (EiR) with specific and relevant experience:
  • Founded their own company or been deeply involved in the venture community
  • Worked internationally across different cultures
  • Raised funds and/or sold a bootstrapped business
  • Experience of growing a company from a handful of employees to a scaled entity
  • Experienced failure and learned from it
  • Looked externally for best practice
• Potential for a sabbatical Student Union role "Entrepreneur Co-ordinator" to coordinate activity across Student Societies and/or with academics.

Theme 6 – External/Expert Advice

Action 34 (Institutions)

Ensure graduate founders remain connected with their institution in order to coach the next generation of founders

We see successful institutions offering not only free support for business start-ups but also a continued connection into student clubs and societies at student discounted rates. Many students continue to engage with various different societies for many years (e.g. climbing, sports, business, etc etc) maintaining their connections to the institution.

Theme 7: Develop support for academic/staff spin-outs

Develop a supportive long-term culture and approach where spin-out "researchers turned founders" are seen as "future donors" rather than "short term cash cows". Academics should be supported in establishing a "spin-out" and also encouraged to return to an academic post within 3 years, enabling a virtuous circle of knowledge.

Theme 7 – Spin-out Support

Action 35 (Institutions)

Design and implement a user centric technology transfer approach that meets the founders' expectations in terms of timelines to complete an investment

This is particularly important for software/technology companies that need to move quickly to capture market share. Seed funding takes 3 months to raise. A spin-out can take in the region of 6–12 months to "spin-out" of an institution.

Theme 7 – Spin-out Support

Action 36 (Institutions)

Reduce expectations of the level of equity to be retained by the institution

Ensure that there is sufficient equity left in the business to facilitate follow-on investment from external investors ensuring that the founder's shareholding in the company remains a motivation to continue and grow the IDE.

• Reduce equity stakes to levels that motivate founders and attract investors. Stakes must be practical and workable in the world outside of the institution (e.g. Stanford 10%, MIT 5%). These should be targets that we aim for
• Align equity stakes based on the specific level of pre-incubation and follow-on support provided to the fledgling start-up.

Theme 7 – Spin-out Support

Action 37 (Institutions)

Where an institution requires involvement in the ongoing governance of a spin-out, ensure that the skill set, knowledge, and capability of the institution's representative on the spin-out's board is at the appropriate level.

Theme 7 – Spin-out Support

Action 38 (Institutions)

Set royalties at rates that ensure that revenues are being used for rapid growth rather than paying debt

Royalties should kick in once the business has reached scale and reduced its liabilities.

Theme 7 – Spin-out Support

Action 39 (Institutions)

Ensure that the level of support and engagement offered by an institution encourages future pay back and ongoing relationships between the university and founder

Active alumni founders are a huge asset supporting the ongoing growth of entrepreneurship in the institution. Work with start-up industry experts to ensure that articles/contract terms are appropriate and encourage ongoing relationships.

Theme 7 – Spin-out Support

Action 40 (Institutions)

Provide support and education for spin-out founders:

• Improve their readiness to run a start-up
• Mentorship from experienced founders and investors
• Commercialisation best practice – Linking to recommendations in the Scottish National Innovation Strategy
• Link in with support offered by other Scottish Agencies – e.g. SE.

Theme 8: Provide access to funding for student and staff led enterprises

Access to timely and appropriate funding is crucial for start-ups and scale-ups.

Theme 8 - Funding

Action 41 (Government/Agencies)

Establish an easy to access/understand guide/directory listing grant-makers and inventors

Funding environments are both critical and often difficult to understand for a start-up. Guidance and direction are extremely useful to founders as they look at options to fund their start-up.

Theme 8 - Funding

Action 42 (Government/Institutions)

Provide students with access to micro grants (linked to a learning programme) to test ideas

Example: ICL Discovery Fund: An experiential learning programme that provides specialist training and micro grants of £250 for students and recent alumni who want to explore and test early-stage ideas. Discovery Fund - Imperial Enterprise Lab

Theme 8 - Funding

Action 43 (Government)

Provide a VC-managed Proof of Concept/Prototyping Grant Fund

Example: The Techstart Proof of Concept Grant Fund is a competitive pre-commercial grant awarding fund. The fund supports entrepreneurs in Northern Ireland with grants to explore the viability and commercial potential of an innovative concept. The fund is managed by Techstart Ventures. Applicants can apply (on a quarterly basis) for fully funded grants (paid in arrears):

• Concept Grant (up to £10K)
• Concept Plus Grant (up to £35k).

Note: This fund should be linked to the SICSA initiative for delivering prototypes discussed in Section 3 Theme 5 above

Theme 8 - Funding

Action 44 (Government)

Create specific funds aimed at early-stage EC company development (take a regionally aligned approach)

These funds should be managed by a 3rd party.

• VC input into public-sector equity funding decisions should be a default
• Encourage co-location between investors and start-ups (e.g. at Techscaler hubs)
• Create a platform for matchmaking companies with investors
• Interrogate investment decisions/outcomes rigorously and share the learning to create opportunities for more start-ups to benefit

Investigate the potential of working with SNIB.

Theme 8 - Funding

Action 45 (Institutions)

Encourage and enable institutions to invest in start-ups/spin-outs directly or indirectly

Some institutions have facilities to support student and early post-graduate start-up activity through limited seed-funding mechanisms. Whilst this is a positive approach, blurring the lines between teaching and investing can be problematic. In particular, by having academic institutions investing in companies, makes academic entrepreneurship education dramatically less effective as it undermines the educator's role as an "honest broker" looking out for the students' best interest (Bill Aulet). How this is implemented needs to be looked at carefully, but there is a potential for a "cross institution" fund that might mitigate the above issue.

Indirect investment can also come in the form of funding of programmes and interactions that support the wider entrepreneurial ecosystem of the institution/region. Funding of these "inputs" is an important part of the overall funding of start-ups and scale-ups.

Theme 8 - Funding

Action 46 (All Stakeholders)

Provide access to, and active attraction of, Alumni, VCs and PE funding

Theme 8 - Funding

Action 47 (Government)

Provide access to reliable and intelligent funding

The expansion of the current CivTech Business Growth System to include post incubator support is a good example of how the Scottish Government is extending its wrap-around support and investing in the success of start-ups and scale-ups. A similar approach could be taken with start-ups emerging from our institutions.

Theme 8 - Funding

Action 48 (Institutions)

Investigate alumni funding opportunities

Funding from Alumni can be hugely important in initiating entrepreneurial interest and activity amongst staff and students (see Section 3 Theme 6 above) with alumni funding entrepreneurial education/competitions etc (rather than legacy buildings…).

Action 49 (Institutions)

Identify corporate funding opportunities

Support specific entrepreneurial programmes e.g.: ICL's flagship programme that supports women studying at ICL to develop entrepreneurial and leadership skills and early stage business ideas "WE Innovate" is sponsored by BP, and "WE Accelerate" sponsored by Santander Universities. They also have a Venture Catalyst Challenge (with £90,000 prize money) sponsored by Huawei

The MediaX model, outlined above, saw businesses paying a membership fee to join MediaX and take advantage of the services they offered/access to academics. Whilst this is not funding as such, it can create a potential revenue stream for an institution.

Theme 8 - Funding

Action 50 (Government)

Establish funding for an ongoing summer school programme

We discussed in Section 3 Theme 5 the concept of a Summer School and Competition for technology start-ups that is funded in a similar way to the Tranzfuser competition by the UK Games Fund About - UK Games Fund . We believe that a similar approach could be deployed supporting a competition/summer school for Tech start-ups based around a grand challenge.

Theme 8 - Funding

Action 51 (Institutions)

Establish funding that supports programs that drive diversity and inclusivity (e.g. WE Accelerate - Imperial Enterprise Lab)

Include in this socio-economic diversity aimed at supporting students from more challenging socio-economic areas and backgrounds.

Theme 8 - Funding

Action 52 (Government/Agencies)

Include "entrepreneurial success" as part of the measure of research success

Positive socio-economic impact is an important outcome of research funding. We should focus research funding where we see an uplift in entrepreneurial activity, resulting in positive socio-economic impact. The above funding proposals will be aligned with any ongoing plans to review research and innovation funding as part of the Scottish National Innovation Review.

Theme 9: Create a vibrant and developing pre-16 domestic talent pipeline as well as attracting entrepreneurial students from around the world

Young people, whether they continue on to college and/or university or not, will benefit from exposure to entrepreneurial thinking. As discussed earlier in this document, we believe that the meta skills that underpin an entrepreneurial mindset are core skills (ideation, creating thinking, collaboration, confidence, problem solving etc) that will support learning whatever the destination of the student.

Theme 9 – Talent Pipeline

Action 53 (Government)

Create a talent pipeline of young people who are engaged, inspired and embrace an entrepreneurial mindset through their primary and secondary education

We propose several interventions in support of the above:

Embed into existing lessons/curriculum initiatives involving social and impact-led entrepreneurship and STEM related capabilities. By doing this, we will encourage more young people to adopt an entrepreneurial and/or computer science focus as they progress through education. In terms of impact-led initiatives, the work of Fuel Change's Challenge for Education in schools and Founders4Schools' Sustainable Futures Project brings in these elements. In STEM we see initiatives in several areas including the work of Founders4Schools: Maths for Girls and Effini who are creating a library of free to access data science learning materials in both excel and python on a "not for profit" basis thus removing existing barriers for educators in providing ready to use knowledge, exercises and datasets aligned to the SQA's data science qualifications

Provide extra-curricular support to engage young people in an entrepreneurial mindset development through programmes such as Young Enterprise Scotland.

Theme 10: Establish a framework for change and a robust quality assurance approach

Achieving the above will require a change framework to support its implementation. Many changes of this scale are complex and difficult to achieve. However, with a framework that helps address the barriers to the change that we see in a "multi-organisational" change, we believe that there is a better chance of a successful implementation. We outline a high-level framework below.

Theme 10 – Framework for Change

Action 54 (Government)

Adopt a framework/accreditation system to help individual institutions gauge their level of entrepreneurial maturity as a simple start point for future activity

We propose a three-tiered accreditation system:

Bronze: Demonstrates significant progress and achievement in at least 5 of the attributes listed above (with at least one from Section 3 Theme 3: Establish institutional policies that support the development of an entrepreneurial mindset in students and staff)

Silver: Demonstrates significant progress and achievement in at least 10 of the attributes listed above (with at least three from Section 3 Theme 3: Establish institutional policies that support the development of an entrepreneurial mindset in students and staff)

Gold: Demonstrates significant progress and achievement in at least 15 of the attributes listed above (with at least five from Section 3 Theme 3: Establish institutional policies that support the development of an entrepreneurial mindset in students and staff). In addition, plays a significant role in leading the development of Entrepreneurial Campuses both regionally and nationally.

As the Scottish National Innovation Strategy emerges, we fully expect our accreditation scheme to dovetail with any proposed accreditation schemes for clusters etc. to ensure a coordinated approach to support and funding.

Theme 10 – Framework for Change

Action 55 (Government)

Establish a guiding framework for the change

To facilitate the overall change from the institution's present state to its desired state we need to establish a framework that we can work to. This change is complex and involves multiple organisations and stakeholders. It is therefore imperative that we adopt a systematic approach that covers each aspect of the change.

Change covers all elements of how we operate including strategy, people, processes, systems, resources, culture, and organisation structures. For each of the above elements of the change we will need to establish where we are starting from, where we would like to end up and the gap we need to bridge (and therefore the interventions that we need to deploy).

Initially we will need to identify the stakeholders and the various roles that they play within the change. These include:

Sponsor - The individual or group who can authorise the change without seeking approval

Target - The individuals or groups who must change (note: all sponsors, agents & advocates are also targets)

Advocate - The individual or group who propose/support the change seeking authorisation from a sponsor

Agent - The individual or group responsible for developing & carrying out the implementation plans.

For each stage and part of the change we need to understand the commitment to and readiness for the change across each of the stakeholder groups as well as the culture and belief sets that make up the environment on each campus/organisation. It is critical that we have commitment and drive from the leadership teams of each of our campuses and governing organisations to ensure that the change is successful. All of the above needs to be supported by a robust and comprehensive communications plan that addresses the concerns and potential resistance to the change.

We recommend an approach that ensures that the change is:

Understood - i.e. diagnosed correctly

Designed - i.e. the solution developed is fit for purpose

Implemented - i.e. effectively and successfully deployed

Evaluated - i.e. measured in terms of achieving the goal it set out to achieve.

Theme 10 – Framework for Change

Action 56 (Government/Agencies)

Develop and adopt measures and KPIs that will demonstrate success

We are conscious that universities have a set of KPIs that are currently used to measure their success. We are proposing developing new North Star KPIs that directly support the ambitions of an entrepreneurial campus. One such measure might be:

The number of start-ups/spin-outs reaching scale-up status (i.e. companies that have found product market fit, have grown their turnover by at least 20% per year for 3 years and have over 10+ employees)

Further measures should also be considered and should also be aligned with the metrics being adopted by the new Techscaler network.

We also propose an input-focused approach which measures and rewards institutions where certain inputs that we know are needed are implemented. See below.

Theme 10 – Framework for Change

Action 57 (All Stakeholders)

Establish a strong quality assurance regime that ensures the quality of the inputs to the system

In addition to the above North Star metric approach, we advocate a focus on quality control which will help ensure that any lagging indicators are successfully achieved (see above).

We have identified a number of operational level inputs that, if present (and delivered with quality), would indicate that the institution is achieving a positive direction of travel in terms of developing as an EC. We recommend that funding is aligned with these inputs and closely linked to a robust quality assurance approach that enables the identification and sharing best practice. These might include:

• Does the institution have a student start-up incubator programme that provides undergrads, graduates and staff with high quality inputs and facilities:
  • Within the institution itself?
  • Shared between institutions?
  • In partnership with a private sector organisation?
  • In partnership with a local authority/enterprise agency?
• What is the ratio of staff focused on student entrepreneurial activity to the number of students, e.g. ICL has 20 staff dedicated to supporting student enterprise and entrepreneurship in a role of c. 21,000 students (includes post grads)?
• Number of mentors and advisors employed (paid and voluntary) as a ratio to number of students?
• Number of students engaging with entrepreneurial activities (e.g. responding to questionnaires/invitations, attending events/competitions etc etc)? In ICL the ratio is 1 in 8 students engaged by their Student Enterprise Team
• Does the institution conduct joint undergrad projects between different faculties and disciplines? e.g. Business School, Computer Science School, Psychology (Human Factors), Creative Arts etc).
• Are start-up entrepreneurial and internet-economy techniques embedded into Computing Science and engineering courses?
• Does the institution run a summer school/start-up competition, or similar?
• Does the university employ EIRs? If so, how many?
• Does the institution offer a number of credit-bearing entrepreneurial courses to undergraduates?
  • Number available as core vs optional?
  • Are computer science students routinely taught about start-up techniques?
  • Note: Stanford offers 165 courses. MIT offer 75 classes across 5 schools
• Number of alumni actively engaging in entrepreneurial curricular and extra-curricular activities forming an entrepreneurial alumni engagement index
• Number of start-up businesses entered into a national competition e.g. Converge Challenge or other cross sector competition.

Theme 10 – Framework for Change

Action 58 (Government)

Establishing an umbrella function to oversee the change across our tertiary institutions

The above recommendations outline the actions that we believe are needed in order to create a series of entrepreneurial campuses across Scotland. In doing so we believe that we will dramatically increase the socio-economic impact of our tertiary institutions.

To achieve this, we will need to accelerate the level of collaboration and sharing of good-practice sharing across the sector. There is also a need to develop a monitoring and tracking capability that supports the overall development of our entrepreneurial campuses over an extended time period. This will require resources and support. This may be able to be absorbed by one of the current Innovation Centres currently funded by the Scottish Government. the governance of the above will also link into any oversight body proposed as part of the Scottish National Innovation Strategy.

This umbrella organisation would establish the change framework and the hierarchy of KPIs that will be required to measure success as well as establish/support a cross institution collaborative forum.