Exploring the outcomes of enterprise and entrepreneurship education in UK HEIs: An Excellence Framework perspective

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate data relating to the outcomes of enterprise and entrepreneurship education (EEE) activity in UK higher education institutions (HEIs). This is achieved via the use of data obtained from the Research Excellence Framework (REF), the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework (TEF), the Knowledge Excellence Framework (KEF) and the Higher Education Business and Community Interaction (HE-BCI) survey. Overall, the analysis suggests, powerfully, that EEE impacts research, teaching and knowledge exchange in a variety of ways. Firstly, it shows that EEE, in terms of the REF, may be up to 46 times more impactful than other management disciplines. Secondly, with regard to TEF submissions, it highlights a positive relationship between the use of the EEE terms and the award level achieved. Finally, research also demonstrates a link between membership of certain HEI mission groups and improved KEF metrics when compared to the sector averages. There is a clear need to research how to develop successful EEE interventions and demonstrate their impact on the graduate, the university ecosystem and the wider economy. These data sources and methodology have not previously been used to develop a narrative for EEE across a university sector in the UK.

Does Entrepreneurship Education Deliver? A Review of Entrepreneurship Education University Programmes in the UK

“…The idea of benchmarking first appeared in business, where organisations sought to understand where they were in relation to their rivals. In recent years, the benchmarking of universities has become extremely common, from the generation of league tables [63] to the statistical comparison of clusters of universities to explore their research, teaching, and knowledge exchange activities [5,64]. This paper applies a benchmarking approach to explore the stated hypothesis not only because it is effective in comparative content such as the one we are working on but also because it reflects the process often applied by students and parents when judging the suitability of programmes.…”

“…This positioning of EE avails educators the freedom to shape EEPs into a variety of forms, from academic courses critically exploring entrepreneurship and its effects to highly applied venture creation programmes (VCPs) that are grounded in the practice of entrepreneurship and learning through this process [20]. Notably, EEPs are far fewer in number than other business education programmes [21], yet they present a complex field of study [22], with only a relatively small number of papers exploring the structure of EEPs [23][24][25], their effectiveness [26][27][28], and their impact [7,9,18,29].…”

“…As we have already established, EEPs are diversely designed with a range of elements to realise a variety of outcomes. That said, we know from some of the studies we have highlighted that, in any one programme, we might expect to find general business content, ancillary subjects (law, for example), and entrepreneurial content focused on ideation, venture design, formation, and development [5,27,32]. One would expect the focus of EEPs to be centred around teaching students about and/or through entrepreneurship, yet the only paper that quantifies this suggests a more balanced approach [27].…”

“…This has been driven by the fact that entrepreneurship has, for some time, been seen as an engine for innovation [4], regional economic growth [5], and job creation [6]. Yet, for all its promise, there is surprisingly little literature that can speak to these impacts [7,8] or connect them to interventions in a meaningful way outside of a small number of specific contexts [9]. This continues to be the case, even though there have been numerous calls to address this agenda over a prolonged period [10][11][12].…”

“…To understand, at any scale, the impact of EE, we previously suggested that researchers need to add to the numerous, small-scale, mainly qualitative publications that dominate the current discourse with broader studies that explore larger datasets [5].…”