Entrepreneurship Education – Myths and Realities, by Karen Wilson (EFER)

In an interesting and discussion-spurring talk by Karen Wilson (EFER) at the REE Europe at Aalto University, she summarized the following myths, which we wanted to share with you:

Entrepreneurship = Business

• Lots of the entrepreneurship courses are provided exclusively at business schools
  
• Many growth entrepreneurs come from engineering, science and arts and medicine.
  
• Reality: Entrepreneurship is cross-disciplinary and must be taught that way
  

Entrepreneurship = start-ups

• Many universities neglect to teach students about how to grow companies
  
• Realty: More focus must be put on growing companies, not just starting them which is relatively easy in comparison
  

Measure of success = students becoming entrepreneurs upon graduation

• Kauffmann research shows the average age of entrepreneurs is 39
  
• Reality: Students must be taught entrepreneurial skills, attitudes and behaviors which can be applied throughout their life
  

Technology Transfer as a “gold mine”

• Only a handful of universities in the world excel and are profitable with technology transfer
  
• TTOs can often become bottlenecks
  

Innovation = R&D

• Innovation is much broader than R&D. OECD data shows a large amount of non-technology innovation
  
• Pouring more money into R&D will not necessarily yield more innovation
  
• Reality: Too often there is a disconnect between Innovation and Entrepreneurship Policy