Parallel Session 1: Supporting Entrepreneurship – The Fast Way for Transformation (Hybrid)

Tuesday 10 October 2023
12:00 – 13:15
Augustiner Kloster

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Sustainable Futures: Global Trends and the Role and Responsibility of Technology Universities

Sub-themes in focus – sharing global perspectives: Supporting Entrepreneurship – The Fast Way for Transformation

What: Round Table Discussion: Parallel Session

Overview:  In these sessions we will explore the sub-themes for the Congress through a range of short presentations leading into round table discussions. 

Each parallel session will have a Chair to facilitate the discussion and we hope the conversations might spark areas for future WTUN collaboration and workstream developments 

Chair: To Be Confirmed

Speakers: 

• Dr Mullika Sungsanit, Vice Rector for Engagement, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Suranaree University of Technology,
• Prof David Spicer, Professor of Small Business Development and Organisational Studies and Director of Business and Community Engagement in the School of Management, University of Bradford
• Prof Vadim Grinevich, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Small Business Innovation, University of Bradford

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Dr Mullika Sungsanit

‘Transformational Entrepreneurship: Where Technology Meets Societal Impact’

As a university specializing in science and technology, Entrepreneurship has been instrumental to SUT’s drive of transformation towards becoming an entrepreneurial university. Through the Student Entrepreneurship Development Academy (SEDA), SUT students, academic and research staff have been instilled with entrepreneurship mindset via. Run as a central unit serving all institutes and units in the university, SEDA offers curricular and extracurricular programs and activities to promote understanding of problems, empathize, ideate, seek novel and creative solutions to address existing problems, swiftly identify opportunities to capitalize on emerging trends in business and value creation.  SUT’s entrepreneurship development platform has offered students and staff inspiration and fundamental skills, to specific skills, to business prototypes, entrepreneurship immersion pre-incubation along with the necessary facilities and support. To date, SUT has generated 12 student startups, 17 spinoffs and over 32 million baht investment funds, in addition to the establishment of Deep Tech Accelerator supported by the Program management unit for Competiveness (PMUC), cooperation mechanism for venture co-creation with international and national partners, driving the establishment of holding company and venture capital funds, encourage support startup/spinoffs teams to raise series A/B fundings. SUT ‘s entrepreneurship also helps SUT support societal needs through innovative ideas and solutions by initiating social enterprises and initiatives between the academia, industry, government, and civil society. These efforts help address pressing social and environmental challenges leading to transformative impact on communities and society.

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Prof David Spicer

‘Enabling Enterprise and Entrepreneurship: Lessons From Applied Learning In Developing Entrepreneurial Awareness’

Entrepreneurship is widely recognised as an engine for social and well as economic change. Developing enterprise skills and entrepreneurial awareness is seen as a major area for growth and development for universities across the globe. Entrepreneurship is seen as a major driver for addressing differences in attainment between groups in society and as a engine for the delivery of the UN’s sustainable development goals, notably Goal 8 (Decent work and economic growth) and Goal 11 (Sustainable cities and communities).

The city of Bradford is recognised as one of the UKs most entrepreneurial cities and has one of the youngest populations in the country as well. Developing and supporting entrepreneurs and small businesses is therefore a key strategic goal for the university (and particularly the faculty of management law and social sciences). At University of Bradford, enterprise and entrepreneurship development for all students is therefore a key tenant of the University’s learning teaching and assessment strategies.

In response to this strategic intent, the faculty of management, law and social sciences has, in the last 2 years, developed significant extra-curricular programmes to support and develop students’ entrepreneurial skills.  These include an ‘Entrepreneurship Festival’ where students from across the university are exposed to entrepreneurial practice through experiential learning (including simulation) and insights from experienced entrepreneurs and ‘Project ReMAKE’ where students work alongside experienced business mentors to support ex-offenders (prison leavers) through a programme of development that supports ex-offenders in developing their entrepreneurial skills and potential business ideas.

The session will draw on feedback and evaluations from these programmes to reflect on the learning gained from these and their impact on students. Insights from this demonstrate that engaged students value the experiential learning, development gained, and the opportunities to interact with experienced and developing entrepreneurs. Participants in both programmes indicate higher levels of entrepreneurial awareness and intent. Additionally, Project ReMAKE demonstrates further impact, through its participant entrepreneurs (ex-offenders) and their development and the positive outcomes reported by them as well.

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Prof Vadim Grinevich

‘Role of the University in developing an ecosystem for inclusive entrepreneurship’

Today’s University, with its emphasis on equality, diversity, and inclusivity, is an important vehicle for enabling entrepreneurship among individuals with non-mainstream characteristics related to gender, age, disability, ethnicity, and social status, among others. Known as missing entrepreneurs, they are underrepresented in existing entrepreneurial ecosystems. This session will reflect on the findings from recent research conducted by Prof. Grinevich from the University of Bradford School of Management in collaboration with Prof. Abreu from the University  of Cambridge. The study explores how university ecosystems enable or constrain the entrepreneurial activities of university graduates, with emphasis on ‘missing’ entrepreneurs. It elaborates a conceptual framework on missing entrepreneurship in student entrepreneurship ecosystems. It then uses this framework as a guidance to conduct a large-scale data analysis using an original combination of data from the UK. The study yields a number of thought-provoking results to discuss at the session. For instance, they indicate the salience of gender when intersecting with ethnicity, implying that a woman student would be systematically disadvantaged within the student entrepreneurship ecosystem because of her gender rather than ethnicity. We also find that being of a lower social status is much more toxic for men students than women peers when it comes to entrepreneurial activities, but men tend to be in a more advantageous situation when intersecting with some essential university ecosystem elements (e.g., incubator infrastructure) and benefit more from a conducive start-up environment in their region.