From Engineer to Entrepreneur - Entrepreneurship Education for Engineering Students: The Case of the Entrepreneurial Campus Villach

Abstract

Entrepreneurship education is quite a novel phenomenon that is gaining increasing importance in academia and practice alike. Entrepreneurship education aims to provide the necessary skills and knowledge that enable students to successfully found a new venture. Hitherto entrepreneurship education has not received much attention in engineering pedagogy. This finding is quite surprising because through proper entrepreneurship education engineers can be enabled to exploit entrepreneurial opportunities that result from technological innovation. Thus, we argue that entrepreneurship education should be a cornerstone in engineering education. The paper introduces the ‘Entrepreneurial Campus Villach’ located at the Carinthia University of Applied Sciences (CUAS). The campus is among the first in Austria that provide an extensive and scientifically sound entrepreneurship program. The campus focusses on the four core areas 1) research, 2) teaching, 3) coaching and support, and 4) infrastructure. The paper provides insights for other university and institutions that aim to set up similar concepts.