Higher education, entrepreneurship and learning by practice: collaborative work from the stakeholders’ point of view

Abstract

The involvement of different stakeholders has created a positive dynamics in the context of higher education, on the one hand by the reinforcement of entrepreneurship linked to innovation, the transference of technology and the creation of companies, and on the other hand by offering extracurricular activities in the formal curricular plans involving different academic stakeholders. Although there are countless initiatives and entrepreneurship programmes, in Portugal there are no (or, at least, no known) studies that analyse the non-formal and informal apprenticeships conceived and implemented by the stakeholders in order to clarify the potential of the development of entrepreneurial competences. Our results gathered from the research project: “Entrepreneurial learnings, cooperation and labour market: good practices in higher education (POAT-FSE)” show which are the main stakeholders or interface institutions between the university and the surrounding community in the process of technological and knowledge transfer. Our analysis proceeds to a report of the profiles, fields of work, advantages and factors of marked obstacles. By highlighting the contributions of these results, used for the innovation and revitalisation of the partnership networks in the field of science, technology and knowledge transfer, we intend to anchor the discussion about the relevance of the stakeholders in European Higher Education governance.