ENHANCING ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN HIGHER EDUCATION THROUGH A RESEARCH ACTIVITY

Several studies have shown the positive effect of generic entrepreneurship education on students’ entrepreneurial interest and intentions (Souitaris, Zerbinati and Al‐Laham, 2007; Peterman, Raposo et al., 2008 and Kennedy, 2003). To this end, this study attempted to develop a model that identifies entrepreneur profile and suggest opportunities for the universities to provide training to develop the entrepreneurship capabilities of students and embraced (or foster) the entrepreneurial spirit at University as a core value.

By equipping students with the necessary expertise, skills and networks, the university can play an active role in alleviating students' fear of failure and instilling then with greater confidence in their ability to set up their own businesses. Studies like Wong Poh Kam, 2013 and Vanevenhoven’s (2013) suggest to send students out into actual start‐up environments to help them in their entrepreneurship journey. However the possibility of creating actual star-up environments for all the students is not always easy.

Therefore, In this paper we present an overview of the state of the art about the enterpreneur profile and a set of activities that can be applied in higher education to enhance this profile. These activities have been integrated into the curriculum of three different subjects of three different degrees by introducing them as parts of a research project. The results have been very satisfactory in terms of the students perspective and also taking into account the final values of the entrepreneurship profile tests.