Entrepreneurial Campus: summary

Definition

When we use the term 'Entrepreneurial Campus', we mean:

Institutions that are considered as world-class have had a significant impact on the regions that they inhabit, creating companies, jobs, and tax revenues. In addition, by retaining the expertise in an area, they are able to inspire and educate future generations of entrepreneurs.

In Scotland, there are around 45 "post-16 institutions" (colleges and universities) which the paper suggests could become Entrepreneurial Campuses.

This means post-16 learning institutions which possess the attributes displayed by successful entrepreneurial campuses around the world and which:

• Inspire the development of an entrepreneurial mindset in their students and staff and academics, promoting and teaching entrepreneurship (including social and impact-led entrepreneurship);
• Provide co-curricular opportunities for students and staff to learn and experience how to succeed as an entrepreneur, linking in with past and current practitioners;
• Provide a launchpad with wrap around support for student start-ups and spin-outs, facilitating access to funding;
• Nurture cross faculty learning, projects, and research, rooted in solving global challenges;
• Work with existing and emerging entrepreneurial communities to amplify regional economic development;
• Develop skills for workers who will staff the start-ups and scale-ups; and
• Provide a pathway to our national Techscaler network^[4] and beyond.

Supporting more of our institutions to become entrepreneurial campuses would not mean that these institutions would cease to be excellent centres for teaching and learning, only that the extent to which teaching and learning also supported entrepreneurship and hence further positive socio-economic impact in Scotland would increase.