International Enterprise Education

1 European approaches to enterprise education

Katja Lahikainen, Timo Pihkala and Elena Ruskovaara

Introduction

For the past 10–15 years, European universities have faced growing expectations for their role in promoting enterprise, innovation and small business development. As a response, European universities are rapidly developing new approaches to incorporate enterprise promotion in the university structure.

The increasing pressure on the universities’ enterprise activities comes from different sources. First, the growing interaction between universities and businesses has stemmed from the need to increase non-governmental funding, due partly to decreasing governmental funding. Second, university students’ growing interest in enterprising is ...