Abstract:

The Ecuadorian society, as it occurs in other Latin American ones, is characterized by economic, social, cultural, and educational inequalities. To cope with this reality, in recent years, Ecuador has been working to change the model of wealth accumulation. This challenge implies moving from an outward development model to an endogenous model based on the production of goods with higher added value. In so doing, encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship become essential to generate economic growth all along with the country.

Public universities are an essential support for regional and local development. In fact, there is a responsibility for public universities to promote, not only knowledge transfer to the students through the teaching programs, but also the development of concrete transversal skills including entrepreneurship, innovation, and social commitment. All these actions should be bounded by local governments and productive sectors to achieve the so desired economic growth. However, nowadays the knowledge acquired by students during their university studies is hardly transferred to the productive and social sphere. One of the first steps to analyzing the reasons for failure is to characterize entrepreneur students in Higher Education Institutions (HEI).

This piece of research shows the results of the characterization of entrepreneurial students in Ecuadorian public universities. A survey validated by experts has been carried out. The study is focused on determining the entrepreneurial activities and the demographic characteristics of the students in a science, technological, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) public HEI in Quito. The results of the study show low levels of entrepreneurship among the sample and a significant relationship between entrepreneurial activity and demographic characteristics of students.

Keywords:

Entrepreneurship, STEM education, STEM experiences, Ecuador.