Abstract:

The present paper makes an evidence-based analysis of the current strategies and practices in Romanian higher education institutions (HEIs) towards supporting entrepreneurship and innovation development. Entrepreneurship and innovation in HEIs are no longer exclusively associated with business start-ups and technology transfer but are increasingly understood as core elements of a procedural framework for how the institution and its key stakeholders behave. All of this is closely linked with what is often called the “third mission”, i.e. the aim to apply and transform knowledge for economic, social and cultural development in the local economy, the country or on a global scale. In Romania, the third mission has received increased attention over the last decade, both from public policy actors and HEI leadership. In this spirit, an important driver at the institutional level was the need to generate additional sources of income to compensate for decreasing public funding.

The Romanian Higher Education Strategy has raised stakeholders’ awareness of the impact of the third mission on economic, social and cultural development. However, the overall approach to teaching is still very much focused on frontal teaching. The study reveals that there is enough room to increase the practice dimension and to make courses and study programs more interdisciplinary, so that students get exposed early to different knowledge bases and different ways of thinking which will develop their aptitude to work in multidisciplinary teams and sharpen their problem-solving skills. Interest in venture creation among students, graduates and young researchers is quickly growing and the HEIs in Romania are responding positively to this strong challenge. Also, internationalization, particularly the recruitment of students, is very important for Romanian HEIs.

In an overall approach, the HEIs in Romania do not systematically monitor and evaluate their entrepreneurship support and third mission activities. Thus, a basic set of metrics is to be developed and implemented on start-up support services and there should be made serious efforts to track and measure third mission activities.

On another hand, as in this very moment it was introduced the eight’s dimension of self-evaluation by using HEInnovate tool, digital transformation offers many opportunities to entrepreneurial and innovative HEIs but it also creates new challenges. So, our study proves clearly that the entry point for digital transformation in Romanian HEIs should be connected to online teaching and learning, not forgetting that digitalization covers much more than the on-line delivery of content. The authors brought strong arguments for the fact that the uptake of digital technologies should not be based on a “tick-box” approach to implementation, but should be based on a holistic, well-designed and integrated strategy that considers technologies as a key enabler and addresses specific, relevant institutional issues and requirements. In this context, HEIs in Romania are already deploying digital technologies, however the uptake and integration varies among and within institutions. In this respect, our conclusions comprise practical arguments for how HEIs should make the most out of the opportunities presented by digital transformation and about how to materialize the digital technologies as a key enabler for HEIs continuously competitiveness improvement, in the new globalized educational system.

Keywords:

Entrepreneurship, innovation, higher education institutions, third mission, digital transformation.