Publication - Strategy/plan

Entrepreneurial Campus: summary

Published: 27 June 2023
From: Minister for Higher and Further Education
Directorate: Economic Development Directorate, +1 more … Lifelong Learning and Skills Directorate
Topic: Economy
ISBN: 9781805259176

Summary of The Entrepreneurial Campus: The higher education sector as a driving force for the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Supporting documents

List of Actions by Theme

Theme 1: Regional Alignment Action
Action #	Action	Carried out by
1	Develop an aligned “place based” approach that forges close links and strong industrial collaborations across your regional stakeholders	Institutions
2	Collaborate and align across institutions within a region sharing programmes and initiatives rather than replicating them on each site	Institutions
3	Simplify and enable access to academics for businesses looking to innovate	Institutions
4	Map and align the activities of Scotland’s national Techscaler network and local/ regional institutions	Institutions
5	Develop an aligned “place based” approach that forges close links and strong industrial collaborations across your regional stakeholders	Institutions
6	Investigate how Venture Studios/3rd party Incubators/accelerators might support the Scottish entrepreneurial ecosystem	Government

Theme 2: Inspire Action
Action #	Action	Carried out by
7	Broaden the focus of entrepreneurial activity to include social and impact-led entrepreneurship as part of ‘mainstream’ entrepreneurship teaching and support	Institutions
8	Provide a range of funding to our emerging social and impact-led businesses	Gov’t Agencies/ Institutions
9	Work with organisations like (SIS) to leverage the full potential of combined networks	Institutions
10	Maximise use of regional and national resources/assets to progress positive social and environmental outcomes	Institutions
11	Create a National Centre for Social and Impactled Entrepreneurship that provides services to institutions, helping them to develop their social entrepreneurship offerings	Government

Theme 3: Leadership Action
Action #	Action	Carried out by
12	Prioritise the development of an entrepreneurial mindset institutions creating a culture that embraces entrepreneurship amongst students, staff, and academics	Institutions
13	Ensure that staffing levels (including external mentors and advisors) support the potential for entrepreneurial behaviour across institutions	Institutions
14	Create an organisational structure and accountabilities that strengthen entrepreneurial teaching and support in institutions	Institutions
15	Partner with, and leverage, government funded/3rd sector organisations that have relevant expertise	Government

Theme 4: Curriculum Action
Action #	Action	Carried out by
16	Offer high-quality, credit bearing entrepreneurial courses to all students and postgraduates	Institutions
17	Attract and develop high quality computer science students by providing flexible pathways into education	Institutions
18	Technology students should be taught the fundamentals of the internet economy through case studies of tech start-ups and be exposed to internet economy best practice in product development	Institutions
19	Students have access to a significant number of co-curricular, cross faculty, entrepreneurial based courses	Institutions
20	Students participate in interdisciplinary/joint undergraduate projects	Institutions
21	Provide field trips and learning experiences to regions where best practice is demonstrated (e.g. Silicon Valley)	Institutions
22	Offer courses in social and impact-led entrepreneurship alongside conventional “For Profit” Entrepreneurship	Institutions
23	Ensure every opportunity is taken to review course content across all faculties, integrating entrepreneurial thinking, teaching, and approaches where applicable	Institutions

Theme 5:
Action #	Action	Carried out by
24	Provide structured, open, and extensive access for staff, students and graduates to entrepreneurial extra-curricular support not constrained by location, background, or personal circumstances	Institutions
25	Establish and scale a national, cross institution competition for start-ups and spin-outs.	Government
26	Create opportunities for CS students to experience developing products/prototypes as well as deliver a prototyping service	Institutions
27	Launch a National Summer School for tech start-ups	Government
28	Deliver a range of extracurricular activities focused on grand challenges and creative problem solving	Institutions
29	Make available more computer science and entrepreneurial internships to students	Institutions
30	Develop/grow institution-based start-up events similar to SLUSH^[6]	Government/ Institutions

Theme 6:
Action #	Action	Carried out by
31	Connect, and create meaningful relationships, with your entrepreneurial alumni and local entrepreneurial community	Institutions
32	Build a database of entrepreneurial alumni expertise that can be easily accessed and interrogated	Institutions
33	Create roles within the institution that facilitate easy access to alumni as advisors and mentors	Institutions
34	Ensure graduate founders remain connected with their institution in order to coach the next generation of founders	Institutions

Theme 7:
Action #	Action	Carried out by
35	Design and implement a user centric technology transfer approach that meets the founders’ expectations in terms of timelines to complete an investment	Institutions
36	Reduce expectations of the level of equity to be retained by the institution	Institutions
37	Where an institution requires involvement in the ongoing governance of a spin-out, ensure that the skill set, knowledge, and capability of the institution's representative on the spin-out’s board is at the appropriate level	Institutions
38	Set royalties at rates that ensure that revenues are being used for rapid growth rather than paying debt	Institutions
39	Ensure that the level of support and engagement offered by an institution encourages future pay back and ongoing relationships between the university and founder	Institutions
40	Improve the support and education provided to spin-out founders	Institutions

Theme 8:
Action #	Action	Carried out by
41	Establish an easy to access/understand guide/directory listing grant-makers and inventors	Government/ Agencies
42	Provide students with access to micro grants (linked to a learning programme) to test ideas	Government/ Institutions
43	Provide a VC managed Proof of Concept/ Prototyping Grant Fund	Government
44	Create specific funds aimed at early-stage EC company development (take a regionally aligned approach)	Government
45	Encourage and enable institutions to invest in start-ups/spin-outs directly or indirectly	Institutions
46	Provide access to, and active attraction of, Alumni, VCs and PE funding	All Stakeholders
47	Provide access to reliable and intelligent funding	Government
48	Investigate alumni funding opportunities	Institutions
49	Identify corporate funding opportunities	Institutions
50	Establish funding for an ongoing summer school programme	Government
51	Establish funding that supports programs that drive diversity and inclusivity	Institutions
52	Include “entrepreneurial success” as part of the measure of research success	Government/ Agencies

Theme 9:
Action #	Action	Carried out by
53	Create a talent pipeline of young people who are engaged, inspired and embrace an entrepreneurial mindset through their primary and secondary education	Government

Theme 10:
Action #	Action	Carried out by
54	Adopt a framework/accreditation system to help individual institutions gauge their level of entrepreneurial maturity as a simple start point for future activity	Government
55	Establish a guiding framework for the change	Government
56	Develop and adopt measures and KPIs that will demonstrate success	Government/ Agencies
57	Establish a strong quality assurance regime that ensures the quality of the inputs to the system	All Stakeholders
58	Establishing an umbrella function to oversee the change across our tertiary institutions	Government

Contact

Email: STER@gov.scot

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