Challenges of educating for Innovation and Entrepreneurship: the role of the Higher Education Institutions

Abstract

Innovation has been debated and evaluated as the engine that leverages the evolution of goods and services. It is also the inspiration and nourishment of Entrepreneurship. Side by side, they struggle to reshape the mentality and functioning of society. The role of higher education in promoting this innovative activity, which aims, nothing more or less, to stimulate the evolution towards a knowledge-based society, is highly important and deserves to be studied. Higher education institutions have long actively contributed with all their studies and training to do more, but the promotion of innovation and entrepreneurship in the students themselves has only intensified in recent years. How can they open the door to more practical opportunities so that students are not instructed only in theory is a challenge. The focus on partnerships has been increasingly valued, namely with the industry itself or the generalized market, and also with the collaboration of research centres. From these synergies, a triangular scheme results which holds not only the bearers, but also the transmitters of knowledge at the vertices, and their interaction has several aspects to consider.