Entrepreneurship education in the research-intensive entrepreneurial university

Abstract

Knowledge commercialisation and commodification are important components of universities’ “Third Mission” to contribute to the development of their home regions by strengthening their engagement with the public, private, and third sectors. Entrepreneurship education programmes have tended to develop in parallel to such “entrepreneurial university” initiatives, rather than in intentional alignment with them. This is reflected in the research literature as well, where the analysis of the “entrepreneurial university” and studies of entrepreneurship education have little overlap. This paper examines the evolution of the entrepreneurship education initiative of a single research-intensive institution—the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom— and the ways in which that initiative have contributed to the broader entrepreneurial and commercial engagement objectives of the university. The Manchester case suggests that research-intensive universities that wish to bring entrepreneurship education and knowledge commercialisation and commodification into effective and beneficial alignment face challenges that require determined strategies to overcome.