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Scholars are paying increased attention to entrepreneurial ecosystems in universities, with calls to investigate and explain contemporary changes, consider different stakeholders, and evaluate the social impact of entrepreneurial activities. At the same time, universities have been urged to collaborate with non-academic actors to address societal and environmental issues, recognizing that such complex social challenges cannot be addressed by the academy alone. Instead, it requires a paradigm shift, coalescing within the literature as transdisciplinarity. This paper explores the potential impact of a transdisciplinary entrepreneurship program where leading UK universities, corporates, and public and third-sector organizations invite a regional community to explore entrepreneurial solutions to the societal challenges of poverty and infrastructure. Using a qualitative multiple-case study research design, 13 cases are investigated longitudinally, representing a variety of industrial sectors, disciplinary perspectives, and founders of entrepreneurial projects such as students, alumni and community members in addition to faculty. We contribute to theory by developing a framework showing how a transdisciplinarity intervention can impact positively upon the institutional, interpersonal, and intrapersonal aspects of the university entrepreneurial ecosystem. We highlight where key barriers remain and conclude with recommendations for more inclusive academic entrepreneurship, educational practice, and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entrepreneurial ecosystems are a hot topic in academia as they are being adopted by governments as regional structures to improve entrepreneurship and innovation; nevertheless, their rapid implementation at a policy level has highlighted theoretical gaps regarding their genesis and development. For instance, contemporary policy adoption in the life sciences is typically built on the premise that establishing entrepreneurial ecosystems in second tier regions will encourage entrepreneurial performance as seen in first tier regions such as Boston, USA and the Oxford -- Cambridge - London 'Golden Triangle' in the UK. To address theoretical concerns over such homogeneous approaches, we focus on one second tier region in the North of the UK that outperforms comparable second tier region, to investigate the influence of contextual factors such as the regional legacy and entrepreneurial interactions between local organisations without the munificent resources available within first tier regions. We deployed cognitive proximity as a theoretical lens to build a temporal framework depicting the interactions between the different organisations in this entrepreneurial ecosystem that were found to support entrepreneurial activities by the SMEs contributing the most significant entrepreneurial outcomes. We conclude that regional stakeholders specialised in facilitating interactions between organisations within ecosystems can be substitutes for a lack of private funding or regional government policy by enabling SMEs to engage in activities such as specialised networking, open innovation and business development activities that are challenging to implement outside of first tier regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing interest in entrepreneurship education has caused a debate about pedagogy can support intention to innovate. Drawing on the theory of planned behavior (TPB), we examine the links between experiential pedagogy and students' intention to innovate and entrepreneurial intent. Using structural equation modeling on a survey of 361 students of compulsory entrepreneurship education across public and private universities, we find that: (a) regardless university type out-of-class experiences and engaged faculty generate positive behavioral control and attitude towards entrepreneurship; (b) out-of-class experiences significantly increases intentions to innovate; (c) behavioral control mediates the relationship between out-of-class experiences and changes in intention to innovate. (d) university type ' public or private ' has no direct significant effect on the students intention to innovate. The results contribute to theories of entrepreneurship education and intentions to innovate in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chilean doctoral programs in science and technology generally do not consider entrepreneurial training within their curricula. We contend that this situation may hinder the possibility that new scientific and technological knowledge produces innovations. This study represents an effort to explore the potential impact of entrepreneurship education on doctoral training within a non-commercial research environment. We identified two main areas of possible impact: the potential effects upon doctoral research projects and the potential effects upon the doctoral students themselves. We followed the learning experiences of science and technology PhD students before, during, and a year after an entrepreneurial course through a multiple case study research design. Our results suggest that entrepreneurship education has a positive impact, both on students' doctoral projects and on the students themselves. Our results further suggest that entrepreneurship education could be an excellent complement for traditional doctoral training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how nascent entrepreneurs make sense of venture ideas and the circumstances through which those ideas are translated into opportunities. To do so, we draw on case study evidence from student entrepreneurs working with venture ideas in a university incubator. In addition to providing a framework of the sensemaking processes inherent in the entrepreneurial process, specifically between ideation and opportunity recognition, we present a typology of key sensegivers that the entrepreneur draws upon to co-construct the idea and enact it into an opportunity. In so doing, we make three contributions; first, we extend the application of the concept of sensemaking to the entrepreneurial process literature, which does not analytically interrogate the strategic use of sensemaking in the transition from idea to opportunity. Second, we identify how entrepreneurs draw upon specific sensegivers to legitimate their entrepreneurial enactments. Finally, we highlight the novel and important connection between sensemaking, the successful enactment of an idea into an opportunity and the failure to enact an idea into an opportunity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]