Abstract:

The demand for entrepreneurship programmes, courses and activities in higher education is increasing globally (Volkmann, C., et al.,2009). Typically, skill-building courses in entrepreneurship education entail creativity, new venture creation, business idea development and opportunity recognition, as well as soft skills like negotiation or presentation competences (Solomon, G.T., et al., 2002). The Bologna process on the one hand, and the high level of interest in entrepreneurship by students, faculties, university administrators and policy makers on the other, make it an appropriate moment to handle this issue.

Europe’s competitiveness, innovation and economic growth depend on the capacity to produce future leaders with the skills and attitudes to be entrepreneurial in their professional lives, whether by creating their own companies or innovating in larger organisations.

The engineering faculty of Mondragon University started working on entrepreneurship related issues some years ago and has pointed it as a strategic issue. Furthermore, the creation of Tekin team two years ago, had the aim of formalizing the entrepreneurship processes and activities within the faculty.

Tekin, so far, has developed a web page, support materials and a teaching pills catalogue where anyone at the faculty can have a look and ask for advice or support concerning this issue. This term, the engineering faculty has defined an entrepreneurship roadmap for the engineering degrees.

This roadmap is consistent on different talks, workshops or conferences that pursue the promotion of the students’ entrepreneurial spirit, the generation of new business ideas, knowledge of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and show entrepreneurship as an self-employability option.
This paper seeks to show the approach pursued at Mondragon University's Engineering Faculty and how is the entrepreneurship education integrated within the curricula of engineering students.

Keywords:

Entrepreneurial education, roadmap, higher education students, self-employability.