Press Release

UK universities urged to reform

9 September 2008

"Universities must lead the way in transforming how higher education prepares the UK's workforce for its future economy."

A report launched today by NESTA, the NCGE (National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship) and the CIHE (The Council for Industry and Higher Education) warns that unless universities embed entrepreneurship education in all parts of university life they risk losing out to fierce international competition.

The warning comes at a time when global companies - and young people - are choosing universities which develop students' entrepreneurial behaviours and skills over universities who see their role purely in terms of transmitting academic knowledge.

The year long report called ‘Developing Entrepreneurial Graduates: Putting Entrepreneurship at the Centre of Higher Education', used evidence that average student engagement rate in entrepreneurship education is 11% for UK students - most of which is taught through business schools - to develop the case for urgent change. Many students and academics, especially those in non-business disciplines, do not see its narrow focus on business start-up as relevant.

Jonathan Kestenbaum, CEO of NESTA, said "Universities must lead the way in transforming how higher education prepares the UK's workforce for its future economy. This is critical in the current economic downturn when entrepreneurial graduates offer a real chance of helping economic prospects."

Keith Herrmann, Deputy Chief Executive of the CIHE added "Pure business skills are no longer sufficient. To add value to the workplace, graduates will need to distinguish themselves by developing entrepreneurial skills that enable them to seize and exploit opportunities, take risks, think strategically, work flexibly, manage complexity, and acquire the more generic employability skills needed for the workplace, such as team-working, communication skills, and commercial awareness."

The report identifies a number of institutional barriers which impede the development of entrepreneurship education in universities. It identifies an opportunity for vice-chancellors and higher education leaders to embrace entrepreneurship education as a central activity across their institution rather than allowing it to remain a tagged-on activity not embedded in any serious way within curricula.

This report also reveals tensions between traditional academic ‘instruction' and the experiential learning and group work approaches needed for effective entrepreneurship education. All this is compounded by short-term and unreliable funding.

Professor Paul Hannon, Director of Research and Education at the NCGE commented: "The report offers a framework to help universities make the necessary changes. We call on vice-chancellors, academics and entrepreneurship educators to work together with entrepreneurs, businesses and students to create a new emphasis toward entrepreneurship across UK higher education institutions. We need to do more to level the playing field across all regions, institutions and disciplines".

The report urges universities to re-think their role as drivers of regional economies by shifting their focus as purely transmitters of academic knowledge to centres of innovation, enterprise and entrepreneurship.