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Charities are facing a crisis in recruiting board trustees. Additionally, boards have been criticised for lacking diversity and being unrepresentative of society. The purpose of this paper is to propose a solution to the problem of trustee recruitment, by considering university business students as trustees. Through an analysis of advertised trustee jobs, the proposal is evaluated against degree subject benchmark statements. The findings identify some key person characteristics specified by charities when recruiting trustees. The generic criteria could be met by most students and many of the personal skills are developed by students while at university. However, to address some of the experience criteria, may require additional training and some yielding by charities. The paper offers originality in its proposition of appointing university business students as trustees and in its approach to examining the feasibility of that proposition through an analysis of trustee jobs.

Potentially, technology transfer offices (TTOs) can play a significant role in facilitating the successful transfer of technologies and knowledge between universities and industry. Many developing countries are currently developing technology transfer practices within their universities. However, many developing country TTOs operate inefficiently or are ineffective. The sharing of experiences can lead to improvements in this endeavour. Advanced nations can serve as a frame of reference and a basis of policy recommendations for developing countries due to the longevity of their technology transfer activities. The authors issued 234 questionnaires to European university TTOs, of which 54 usable questionnaires were returned. They combine the data from these questionnaires with 19 interviews conducted with university TTO staff from 9 countries in an attempt to create a typology of practices that developing nations could emulate to improve technology transfer in their own contexts. While ultimately a clear typology was not forthcoming, the authors found some relationship between the dominant focus in the mission statement of developed country TTOs, the activities they undertake, their position in the university governance structure and their level of maturity which may usefully inform the development of TTO practices in developing countries.

This paper feeds into scholarly interest on place-based creative industrial development. It considers the creative-led economic development of two UK cities, Dundee and Chatham as emerging through a series of interdependent relationships between locally based higher education institutions (HEIs) and cultural and creative industries (CCIs) that are connected as part of a cultural and creative ecosystem (CCE). The discussion reflects on how interconnecting collaborations foster platforms and networks that support a sustainable CCE. Based on the research findings from qualitative investigations within each city, the paper applies the capability approach as a methodological tool to investigate how resources can be converted into tangible, accessible opportunities for local communities. The approach illustrates the need to focus on the resources that connect HEIs to CCIs within a geographical location for sustainable development. It concludes with a series of policy recommendations aimed at local governments to develop more integrated, ecological leadership models and policies to support sustainable CCEs.

This paper reflects on the systematic interconnections between creative workers and higher education institutions (HEIs). Despite the latter representing key intermediaries in creative industries' development and creative workers' career trajectories, the relationship between the two has rarely been framed in a relational and systemic framework. To do so, we chose the UK theatre sector as the case study and adopted a mixed methodology: UK Higher Education Statistical Agency quantitative data, which informed us on the employment state of workers 6 months after graduation, were combined with 21 semi-structured interviews with actors and actresses to understand the complexity of their relationship with HEIs. HEIs emerge as the initial door to paid jobs and professional networks for graduates and as employers for those in the later stages of their careers: the lack of formal ways to access jobs and the precarious working conditions for performers make hence HEIs a crucial force in shaping workers' careers. Furthermore, HE remains throughout the career of theatre workers an important part of their portfolio, providing reliable income and more stable working patterns when needed. The paper concludes with the findings' policy implications and the future role of HEIs in creative and cultural ecosystems.

The objective of the study reported here was to ascertain the impact on small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) owner-managers of simulating having and being a non-executive director (NED) within the GOLD programme at Lancaster University, the purpose of which is to help owner-managers of SMEs to become better strategic leaders of their companies. Three research approaches were used: (a) participant observation in each of the 20 businesses; (b) interviewing owner-managers; and (c) a review of materials and transcripts generated from Board meetings. Participants engaging in a higher education institution (HEI)-generated network with high levels of trust had an opportunity to behave in a different way; and owners acquired operational and strategic experience of having and being an NED. The initial results indicate that this experience results in greater strategic focus. The engagement of an HEI with SMEs through innovative processes drawn from larger organizations accelerates the creation of trust and social capital, allowing ways of working that might otherwise be dismissed. (Contains 5 tables, 1 figure, and 2 notes.)

The COVID-19 pandemic reduced the availability of work placements in commercial organisations for university students and potentially changed the nature of placements in the future. Similarly, charitable organisations who were already suffering budget restrictions have been financially affected by COVID-19 due to reduced revenue on trading activities, with financial sustainability predicted to be an ongoing issue. The opportunity, therefore, for charities to entice university students to volunteer to support their work, with the lure of developing their employability skills, seems irresistible at this time. The purpose of this paper is to examine the content of job advertisements for volunteer positions to determine the extent to which they specify transferable skills desired of the candidates, or state that they can be developed once employed in the post. The underlying assumption is that, to attract student volunteers, job advertisements will need to explicitly state the transferable skills resulting from the post, since students will be focused on developing employability skills through the volunteering activity to support their graduate careers. The paper offers originality by conducting a content analysis of volunteer jobs and assessing the specified criteria against recognised employability skills. It concludes by challenging charities, students and universities to embrace the opportunity for students to develop transferable skills through volunteering by modifying current practices.

Universities globally are aspiring to grow through investing in the delivery of online learning programmes. However, the attrition rate for online learning is high. It has been noted that those students with a sense of belonging to their course experience increased enjoyment and reduced anxiety and are therefore less likely to withdraw. Yet too often programme design guidance to support a sense of belonging for student communities focuses on localised, full-time and young students rather than older, globally dispersed, time-starved students such as those in the online entrepreneurship programme that is the subject of this paper. The authors explore how a sense of belonging in entrepreneurship students can be supported effectively in a virtual learning space throughout their online degree studies. The research presented adopts an interpretivist perspective and includes interviews with eight students studying a 1-year top-up degree in a UK higher education institution. The teaching and support staff interviewed were based solely in the UK. The data collected were examined using thematic analysis. The paper contributes to the debate about what a sense of belonging means in a virtual space for entrepreneurship students and identifies how such students can feel connected and supported to finish their course.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate data relating to the outcomes of enterprise and entrepreneurship education (EEE) activity in UK higher education institutions (HEIs). This is achieved via the use of data obtained from the Research Excellence Framework (REF), the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework (TEF), the Knowledge Excellence Framework (KEF) and the Higher Education Business and Community Interaction (HE-BCI) survey. Overall, the analysis suggests, powerfully, that EEE impacts research, teaching and knowledge exchange in a variety of ways. Firstly, it shows that EEE, in terms of the REF, may be up to 46 times more impactful than other management disciplines. Secondly, with regard to TEF submissions, it highlights a positive relationship between the use of the EEE terms and the award level achieved. Finally, research also demonstrates a link between membership of certain HEI mission groups and improved KEF metrics when compared to the sector averages. There is a clear need to research how to develop successful EEE interventions and demonstrate their impact on the graduate, the university ecosystem and the wider economy. These data sources and methodology have not previously been used to develop a narrative for EEE across a university sector in the UK.

The literature on innovation and regional economic development shows widespread references to 'systems' but relatively little application of systems thinking and problem structuring methods. Innovation models are thus under-theorised with operationally-based maps that link the structure of innovation systems to behaviour and possible policy levers. This conceptual paper addresses this shortfall by applying a systems mapping approach to regional innovation ecosystems which sets out the structural drivers and actor inter-relationships in regional economies with universities acting as focal points for knowledge application. A causal feedback map is hypothesised from participative research and the innovation literature, providing an integrative framework and enabling initial policy discussions about the drivers of regional innovation. Hence this model identifies the virtuous reinforcing behaviours that act endogenously within an innovation ecosystem to drive economic growth. Several policy questions concerning regional innovation and university-industry-government collaboration are surfaced by the model. Finally, possible policy interventions are proposed.

There is limited experience with innovation policies in rural areas, often based on a one-size-fits-all approach. However, rural businesses have diverse needs and there is difficulty in applying smart specialisation approaches for the use of European Union Cohesion funding in rural areas. A key resource in rural areas is the local university, and universities face increased demands to support local firms. This paper examines one particular case of a university in a rural region and its use of the European Regional Development Fund to support innovation activities. The challenges of working with rural businesses are explored, as is the focus on one-to-one support rather than the more collective smart specialisation approach. Universities need to take a pragmatic approach to ensure that the needs of firms can be balanced with the capacities of rural universities which are often smaller and more specialised than urban universities.

UK drug discovery and development is increasingly being shaped through a complex interaction of research, policy and practice. However, our understanding of this innovation system is partially due to the dearth of systems-level empirical studies and to simplistic conceptual approaches. This study uses a Triple Helix systems approach to illustrate how a novel database of Research Excellence Framework 2014 impact case studies may be used both to advance empirical understanding of UK drug discovery and development and for theory development. The authors refine the Triple Helix system by identifying relationships between its three components (academia, government and industry) and various social actors. The paper also make two contributions to practice, concerning the relative unimportance for impact generation of geographical clusters relative to strategic alliances, network linkages and knowledge spillovers, and the strong bias towards national and Anglo-American academic--practitioner linkages with few or no links to emerging knowledge economies.

This paper considers business and enterprise education through the lens of theatre and the creative arts, and identifies new pathways towards an interdisciplinary way of supporting the young innovators of the future, placing higher education as a central catalyst. Following a review of key criticism directed at traditional business and management approaches in the academy, the article problematizes the notion of experiential enterprise education in the curriculum and poses the question as to where and when students are afforded the opportunity to fail. Through an autoethnographic account, the key themes of authenticity, risk and failure, experiential approaches and embeddedness are presented. There is an urgent need for further and higher education institutions to develop a much more holistic and interdisciplinary approach to developing entrepreneurship in their students. These institutions are currently perpetuating pedagogical hypocrisy in that they preach productive failure while practising assessment success. An effective 21st-century approach would champion risk-taking and productive failure, place processes over outputs and acknowledge the important role of the post-course curriculum.

This paper returns to the question of whether business schools alone can meet the challenges of enhancing creativity and innovation in entrepreneurial education. Policy makers have side-stepped definitional argumentation in order to embrace a more nuanced potential for entrepreneurial competency development, using multidisciplinary practice in learning and assessment that can be found beyond business and management discourse. Insights from other disciplines can be missed as different terminologies and definitions apply. Design education is inherently multidisciplinary and has been instrumental in facilitating significant policy-level changes. To delve more deeply into this phenomenon, the authors illustrate what actually happens in a classroom in which business and design intersect. Neuroscience research into the learning brain informs learning, teaching and assessment related to creativity, visioning and dealing with ambiguity -- through the progressive development of flexibility and adaptability. The authors introduce the Crit, a common feature of Art and Design courses, as a tool of assessment, concluding that, before we dig deeper into business and management discourses, sideways glances into design education will continue to offer benefits.

The aim of this paper is to provide educators and potential industrial partners with an insight into students' perceptions of working with industry during their undergraduate studies, and to highlight, through comments from academic staff, the effect on their design outcomes. The paper focuses on a collaborative design activity conducted with second-year product design students in a UK higher education institution. The study is part of the ongoing pedagogic development of a module and programme relating to design practice and covers two academic years--in one year the design brief was based on a review of literature and in the second an industrial partner provided the information. Academic staff and industrial partners were interviewed; students completed a survey regarding their experience and perception of working with the industrial partner in the module. The results indicated that there were significant improvements in student engagement, academic grading and the perceived quality of the final design outcomes. The results also showed that students not only saw industry collaboration as an essential element in their undergraduate learning but also that it was a key factor when deciding which programme to study.

This paper addresses a knowledge gap by presenting an empirical investigation of a group coursework protocol and peer assessment system (GCP&PAS) used in a UK university to support postgraduate marketing students in their assessed group activities. The aim of the research was to examine students' understanding of the GCP&PAS and their attitudes towards assessed group coursework and peer assessments generally. The study also sought to identify any differences in such attitudes as a result of group conflict. It was found that students are supportive of the principles of assessed group work and peer evaluation, but that there are differences in attitudes towards the GCP&PAS between those who experience group conflict and those who do not. The paper contributes to the literature in that it highlights the meaning of the research findings with regard to students' preparedness for work. It also recommends further examination of conflict and other factors such as culture and gender in the investigation of alternative peer evaluation systems.

This conceptual paper contributes to the discussion of the role of regional government and regional Triple Helix constellations driving economic development and growth within regional boundaries. The impact of regionalism and subsidiarity on regional Triple Helix constellations, and the questions of governmentality, governance and institutional development at the regional level, were investigated. It is emphasized that the position of regional authorities in the structure of government and policy boundaries is best implemented at the regional level (the principles of regionalism and subsidiarity), and that localized policy practices represent a more precise view of government-industry-university interactions (the principle of governmentality). In addition, the regional Triple Helix context as a prerequisite for stakeholder engagement, enhancing innovation capabilities and entrepreneurial behaviour, was studied. The paper identifies the drivers behind regional competitiveness and economic development and investigates the positive externalities from strong Triple Helix constellations, as well as the impact of government support and institutionalized cooperation on value creation and value capture at the level of the locale. The paper offers a stylized model of the conditions for value creation and value capture, and presents a critical overview of the debates about the rationale for regional governments. Examples are drawn from Scotland, England and other, comparable parts of Europe.

This paper reports on an investigation into the value of the contribution of the higher education institution (HEI) context in developing graduates' enterprise skills. The study was an exploration of where graduates develop enterprise skills, examining the impact of the higher education and employment contexts on the development of these skills. The paper draws on a qualitative study in which interviews were conducted with pharmacy academics and employers. The results show that an ability to demonstrate skills in one context does not necessarily indicate an ability to demonstrate them in another, because the development and demonstration of enterprise skills are influenced by the contexts in which they are developed and demonstrated. The study adds value by highlighting the significant role of both the HE and employment contexts in developing enterprise skills, while emphasizing that these skills become more transferable through exposure to more contexts.

During 2005-2006 entrepreneurship students in several UK universities completed a survey about their background and career intentions. This paper reports, eight years on, on a follow-up study with ten of these participants, with the aim of exploring the students' intentions and subsequent actions since graduating. Using a qualitative methodology, the authors examined whether those who were measured as likely to be entrepreneurial are entrepreneurs; and whether the participants consider that their entrepreneurship education experience was valuable. The study finds that career experiences and outcomes are highly idiosyncratic and do not seem to correspond closely to original intentions, regardless of original ambitions. The authors suggest that career destinations are complex in a dynamic graduate employment context, and that entrepreneurship education has a contribution to make for graduates, irrespective of whether or not they become entrepreneurs. The paper identifies a weakness in entrepreneurship education research in its over-reliance on agency-based approaches and its assumption that outcomes are measured in the binary terms of "entrepreneur" or "not entrepreneur". The authors recommend methodological development in the field to capture more appropriately the rich and nuanced relationship between entrepreneurship education and graduate careers. This should lead to a more robust understanding on which to base information for delivery and practice.

A review of the literature on corporate universities finds that the peak for research and publishing on the topic occurred between 1998 and 2002 and fell away considerably after 2005. Given the apparent lack of research during the past decade, the purpose of this paper is to present an insight into what has been happening to corporate universities, what changes have occurred and what the emerging trends are in corporate university development. The paper includes two short cases, one from the UK and one from Australia, reflecting developments and trends in corporate universities in the banking industry. The authors examine the move away from corporate universities as highly resourced, geographically based training centres to virtual entities facilitated by the development of digital technologies. At the same time, there appears to be greater emphasis on the alignment of corporate training and people development with the strategic objectives of the organization, so that employees at all levels can provide leadership to the people and functional areas for which they are responsible. The authors conclude by arguing that in an increasingly global and unpredictable digital disruptive age the corporate university must evolve from being a primarily social and knowledge transfer mechanism to facilitating company renewal and transformation; in effect, becoming the organization's learning laboratory.

This paper discusses how art and design pedagogy can further entrepreneurship in societal, economic and educational contexts, so that students may thrive in a world full of complexity and flux, empowered to create sustainable futures of their own making for themselves and their communities. The author touches on some of the methodologies inherent in art and design pedagogy for teaching creativity and innovation and provides a broader overview of how the values and attitudes inherent in this pedagogy can further the current concepts of innovation and entrepreneurship and their societal and economic contexts. The paper highlights how the values, attributes and attitudes associated with art and design pedagogy translate into the economic focus of most current entrepreneurship thinking.

Research on sustainability and innovation-driven economic growth has exposed a lack of sufficient knowledge in the governance literature about the appropriate extent of government involvement. This paper focuses on the governance of innovation and the intermediary role of the state. The author synthesizes the literature on governance and regulation and introduces the concept of intermediation in the innovation process. The paper employs the Triple Helix model, which describes interactions and intermediation between government, industry and universities, and extends it by looking at the role played by intermediaries, including public and private institutions, government bodies and independent organizations. A new theoretical framework for the analysis of intermediation and the governance of innovation is developed and applied to four case studies of intermediaries in the health technology cluster in the Greater South East region of the UK. The empirical findings demonstrate the heuristics of the intermediation concept and the application of the intermediation framework. (Contains 2 tables and 3 figures.)

This paper presents an examination of the importance of softer skills in the accountancy profession and a discussion of the contribution that universities can make in supporting the development of these skills. With employers increasingly demanding a greater range of softer skills such as effective communication, the paper is intended to challenge universities to reflect on whether they are maximizing the opportunity to prepare individuals for a career in the accountancy profession. The authors suggest that university lecturers teaching accountancy studies may need to adopt alternative learning methodologies, such as enquiry-based learning, to develop students' softer skills effectively. (Contains 3 notes.)

This paper provides insights into the human capital development of a group of young entrepreneurs, all of whom have built growth businesses with turnovers of between 1M British Pounds and 90M British Pounds. Their development of knowledge and skills was investigated before and during the creation of their first main ventures. This is significant in the context of current UK government policies to encourage young people to consider entrepreneurship as a career. The study considers the relevant skills and knowledge the young entrepreneurs developed prior to starting their businesses, the influences they experienced and how this pre-entrepreneurial learning affected their venture creation activities. Finally, the paper considers the challenges the entrepreneurs faced as they grew their businesses. (Contains 3 notes and 1 table.)

This paper explores the challenges and use of a postgraduate consultancy module in teaching operations management. The consultancy module extends the traditional learning boundaries between students and lecturers to a tripartite grouping of students, university and industry. The interaction within this group may be influenced by students' skills and their level of understanding and the needs of the particular industry. The consultancy module and the students' solutions are thus influenced by cooperation and teamwork and the autonomy, skills and training of the students as part of the application of operations management theory. The paper also presents an evaluation of the perceived gap between teaching operations management theory in higher education and its application in practice (in industry). It is argued that providing an operations consultancy module as a strategic teaching tool encourages postgraduate students, lecturers and industry to build a bridge between the relatively distinct worlds of academia and industry. The research is intended to help operations management educators to identify and deal with the challenges of setting up a consultancy module in higher education.

This paper explores the views that students and employers have on innovative work-based learning (WBL) programmes in English higher education. The experiences of both students and employers were analysed methodologically, using the organizational story-telling framework (Gabriel, 1999). The themes that have emerged are learning support, organizational issues, links between the WBL programme and the workplace and barriers to change. The paper concludes with recommendations for future policy and research. (Contains 2 notes and 1 figure.)

Enterprise education at Newcastle University, UK, is embedded in the fabric of the curriculum via the Newcastle University Graduate Skills Framework. An example of this is the "Business for the Bioscientist" module. The authors discuss this module with regard to good practice, enterprise development and the wider arena of graduate careers and employer expectations. The paper illustrates how a combination of academics, curriculum developers, enterprise educators and guest speakers can result in an innovative and interactive enterprise module. Feedback from employers has reinforced the importance of embedding enterprise skills in the curriculum: the authors examine the methodology used at Newcastle to achieve this, the approach adopted and responses from learners. They assess how such an initiative can establish enterprise as a norm in the skills sets of graduates. The paper proposes and highlights various factors that universities need to address if they are to realize fully the concept of entrepreneurial learning. (Contains 2 tables and 4 figures.)

The teaching of entrepreneurship as an academic subject, as opposed to the apprenticeship route, is the subject of ongoing debate. The authors suggest that there is a middle road and that, by integrating the business world into teaching in a significant way, the best of both approaches can be achieved. In a similar vein, the credibility of some university interaction with small business has been called into question. The authors discuss how they have used the role of "entrepreneur in residence" (EIR) to integrate and improve research, teaching and academic-business interaction. The paper describes the experiences of the EIR hosted at Lancaster University Management School's Institute for Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development (IEED) in the UK and examines the outcomes of his work and his perceptions of university life; how his presence challenged internal thinking; and how his fellowship led to service innovation in the host organization. Other formalized EIR activities within and outside the UK are also reviewed; and the authors conclude by proposing how UK HEIs might best make use of similar opportunities, with a challenge to non-management departments. The paper demonstrates one way in which the perceived gulf between entrepreneurship teaching and the business world can be bridged to good effect. (Contains 2 tables and 1 note.)

This paper reports on strategic developments to enhance student learner autonomy skills through the use of enquiry-based learning (EBL) in the design of higher education programmes. The UK's Sheffield Hallam University is a recognized Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) in the field of developing learner autonomy. Central to the university's learning, teaching and assessment strategy is the conviction that students must become autonomous learners to acquire the skills and knowledge needed for employment, research and continuing professional development. In this context it is imperative that students are increasingly able to manage their own learning, formulate their own lines of enquiry and develop flexible approaches to their studies--the essence of acquiring learner autonomy. It is also important that they can work across discipline boundaries, often in teams, tackling problems that are essentially multidisciplinary. The central theme of this paper is the strategic use of EBL in areas that involve students working together in small groups.

This paper examines the practical implications for teachers wishing to incorporate e-learning and Web 2.0 technologies into their pedagogy. The authors concentrate on applied didactical scenarios and the impacts of e-learning innovations. The methods applied stem from grounded theory and action research. An analytical framework was derived by inverting problem-based learning (PBL). Three practices at the University of East London (UEL) are examined in the context of this framework, using, respectively, a formal virtual learning environment, Facebook and Skype. The paper's findings have implications and provide guidance for those planning and implementing online collaboration and learning in education and industry. (Contains 2 figures.)

This paper examines the perceptions and attitudes of mature students in relation to a ground-breaking one-year "top-up" degree in business and enterprise, exploring how those perceptions and attitudes evolve during the students' studies. It concludes with a discussion of how entrepreneurship educators can best support the development of these novel students as enterprising individuals in businesses and organizations. A longitudinal approach has been adopted for the research. Students on the programme complete questionnaires at the beginning, halfway through, and at the end of the programme, enabling the researchers to identify changes in perceptions and attitudes over time. This paper is concerned with the first and second questionnaires in the research study, which indicate positive changes in the students' perceptions of themselves as enterprising and creative individuals. Additional benefits of the programme have also been identified, such as the development of students' networking skills, the raising of their confidence in expressing their ideas, and an improvement in their ability to motivate others to express their ideas. The implications for policy makers relate to how novel enterprise education schemes can support the development of an enterprising society. Similarly, entrepreneurship educators can gain insight into how innovative workplace-based learning, linked to organizations as well as personal objectives, can be delivered. (Contains 2 figures.)

A growing body of research evaluates various aspects of entrepreneurship education (such as curriculum, delivery and assessment) and links it to outcomes in terms of both the number and quality of entrepreneurs entering an economy. There is, however, a marked paucity of empirically rigorous research appraising the impact of entrepreneurship education on graduates' intentions and perceived ability to set up Internet-based e-enterprises that can operate across temporal and geographical boundaries. This paper provides a comparative overview of entrepreneurship education in the UK, the USA and China with a focus on IT and non-IT students' e-entrepreneurship intentions, perceptions and outcomes. The research on which the paper is based was carried out in two distinct phases: first, focus groups were used to design, pilot and develop a comprehensive research questionnaire for use in a wider, multi-country survey; second, questionnaires were then distributed to students in IT and non-IT related disciplines in the UK, the USA and China. The preliminary results show that most respondents were slow to conceptualize and contextualize e-entrepreneurship in the prevailing socio-economic and political conditions of their countries of origin. There were no significant differences between students of IT and non-IT disciplines in their perceptions of the viability and practicality of engaging in e-entrepreneurship. Generic support initiatives appear to neglect the vast portfolio of skills needs for graduates engaging in Internet trading. The authors recommend that entrepreneurship education providers should engage with emergent models of e-entrepreneurship and that policy makers should provide innovative initiatives to cater for the specific needs of e-entrepreneurs. (Contains 5 tables.)

The rationale underpinning UK higher education (HE) has changed significantly over the last 20 years. Government policy dictates that 50% of 18-30 year-olds should be in HE by the year 2010. Students enter HE almost solely for the exchange value of the qualification and the expectation of enhanced career prospects in business and industry. This paper argues that UK HE is not responding to the drivers for change demanded by the key stakeholders and as a result advances in business and industry are compromised by the inadequacies of graduates. The current HE system has evolved steadily into its current form, but in the last two decades there have been radical changes in the demands of stakeholders. These changes were identified by Sporn at the European level as: "three major challenges: expansion, diversification, and massification". Higher education systems have not been sufficiently reactive to these step changes. The paper sets out a current view of HE based on evidence collected through participant observation and data from key stakeholders. It highlights deficiencies in HE which impact adversely on business and industry and have been created by inherited structures. Some of these proposed deficiencies have been identified as the funding of HE, the tension between research and teaching, the separation of vocational and non-vocational disciplines, the radical advances in ICT, the demands of key stakeholders and the inability to foster creativity and innovation in the curriculum. The author offers a discussion framework to initiate a discourse on how best HE can meet the needs of business and industry more effectively over the next twenty years.

This paper presents the findings of an exploratory study into spin-out firms established during a five-year period at ten UK universities. The author suggests that merely counting the number of spin-outs formed reveals little about the overall efficiency of technology transfer efforts at universities. Instead, one has also to consider other aspects, such as the institutional setting from which spin-outs emerge, as well as several characteristics of the spin-outs themselves, including their origins and growth, the investments received and their continuing presence in the local economy. The paper also conveys the attitudes of directors of technology transfer offices on issues such as technology transfer policy, the management of the spin-out process, and the demand to achieve targets for spin-out numbers. The directors reveal reservations about the legitimacy and value of count data and simple comparisons between universities as a measure of commercialization efforts, and express concern about the use of targets as performance indicators. (Contains 11 tables and 7 endnotes.)

A cursory review of academic headlines would suggest that educational institutions can be perceived as formalized, regimented and systematic--intellectual factories that reward those staff and students who conform best to rigid systems which ensure the efficient processing of quantity. Is this the reality? Do prevailing economic and bureaucratic pressures in higher education, at best, stifle creativity or, at worst, actively eradicate creative thought? This paper asks whether there is a place for the successful teaching and development of marketing and entrepreneurial creative skills within the UK educational system, and if so how these newly merging pedagogical areas can be nurtured. The paper explores the interplay between creativity and conformity within a modern university system. It takes as a case study a marketing enterprise module taught within a Department of Design to highlight the issues faced and the outputs achieved. The investigation reviews current thought from the social sciences and management literature relating to creativity, creative marketing, entrepreneurship and creative problem solving. (Contains 2 figures.)

This paper describes the conception and progress to date of the development of work-based learning as part of post-qualifying education in the School of Nursing at the University of Salford. There is a changing culture in the university in relation to the delivery of programmes via non-traditional routes. In this context, work-based learning is a radical change from current teaching and learning strategies in the School of Nursing and in the university as a whole. This creative approach contrasts significantly with the more traditional methods of teaching and learning in higher education. The paper reports on the development, introduction and evaluation of a work-based learning module as a pilot project. It then outlines the development of a work-based learning degree using the lessons learnt from the pilot.

The complexities of developing a business based on a novel product may appear insurmountable. Stereotypical convention suggests that there are two major players: polarized inventors and "greedy" investors. Surely there is a way of aligning the inventor-investor relationship into something positive for both parties? In this paper Francis Hobbs explores how both inventor and investor can be incentivized in a virtuous circle through the creation of a formal link between an "IP holding" (inventor) company and an "exploitation" (investor) company which is then free to commercialize the idea as it sees fit. With grant funding provided by the government and channelled through the exploitation company, the investor maintains cherished commercial freedom while the inventor benefits not only from paid contract employment to develop his or her own idea in the short term but royalties and, perhaps, exploitation company equity rewards in the longer term when product sales commence. (Contains 4 figures and 5 notes.)

Of all professions, engineering is ranked near the bottom in the UK in terms of the proportion of female applicants for university places, so the engineering industry is missing out on some of the best young talent available. Despite initiatives to increase the number of women entering engineering, there has been little change over the last decade. Engineering's popularity with males has declined over the same period. This paper discusses the findings of recent research into school students' perceptions of engineering. It identifies some of the barriers to engineering careers, including gender stereotyping, negative images and a lack of knowledge about the subject. The paper offers some solutions and concludes that schools, industry and higher education can work together to attract more young people of both sexes to engineering careers. (Contains 3 tables, 4 figures, and 1 note.)

With the current growth of the Internet, we expect significant changes in how and to what extent companies acquire business information. By comparing two studies on information seeking by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) carried out in 1982 and 2003 respectively, and comparing the results with other studies, this paper indicates that the reality is rather to the contrary. SMEs remain remarkably stable in their information seeking behaviour, in the sources they use and in the problems they face. The paper concludes with a discussion on the likely causes of this consistency and its consequences for online intermediaries. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)

Recent education policy in the UK has encouraged universities and industry to work in partnership as a means of improving the quality of student learning and preparing graduates to enter the workplace. Indeed, both the Lambert Review of Business-University Collaboration (Lambert, 2003) and the White Paper on The Future of Higher Education (DfES, 2003) highlight the need for collaboration and closer working relationships. This paper reports on the results of a research effort to assess the extent of university-industry collaboration in the UK's built environment sector and to measure the impact of such activity. The "Accelerating Change in Built Environment Education" (ACBEE) initiative sought to identify the nature of engagement activities in the built environment and to formulate, evaluate and develop guidelines for best practice. Forty case studies of engagement were collected from the built environment sector using a standard template, and many sustained engagement activities and established collaborations were identified. The paper explains how these case studies were categorized and evaluated to develop an understanding of the nature of the different types of engagement. A framework was subsequently developed for the classification of the case studies. Finally, the paper considers how the quality of such engagement can be measured and proposes appropriate key performance indicators. (Contains 2 tables and 4 figures.)

This paper presents an analysis of the IT Futures Centre, a European technology transfer project based at the University of Wolverhampton in the UK. After reviewing UK government policy in technology transfer, the authors highlight the project's two key elements--a new state-of-the-art building and an IT consultancy team--both of which are dedicated to providing advice, consultancy, training and demonstration facilities for small and medium-sized companies in the West Midlands region of England. The paper addresses the systems and methodology used for delivery and the quantitative data available which indicate the progress companies have made as a result of this intervention. Finally, issues that have arisen during the operation of the project to date are discussed, especially the problems that academics face in the delivery process. (Contains 2 endnotes, 1 table, and 1 figure.)

This paper reviews the UK government's Science Enterprise Challenge (SEC) initiative, giving particular emphasis to the SEC objective of achieving cultural change. A "cultural web" framework is applied to characterize the political, symbolic and structural issues that need to be addressed if change is to be effected. The author suggests that, if the vision of the future "enterprising university" causes concern, there is a need to analyse assumptions and if necessary change activities. If the vision is acceptable, then the cultural web analysis assists in developing an understanding of the target and enables faster and better decision making on the way. (Contains 2 figures.)

The relationship that has existed historically between industry and higher education in Western economies is currently being mirrored in the transforming economies of the former Soviet Union. These emerging market economies have been encouraged by their association with a now obsolete British Council awards scheme to study historical and current relationships between businesses and education providers in established market economies. This paper analyses the professional and academic collaboration between a British and Russian university and their respective business networks. The case is set in the context of a UK government "Know How Funds" project. The paper summarizes and analyses discursive sections of the periodic financial reports of the award holder, submitted throughout the project, to the British Council. The findings from the case study support the use of peer education and the resultant cascade of knowledge as mechanisms to drive through the transition to a market economy. (Contains 5 tables.)

This paper reports in part on a major study, carried out in 2013, in which data were collected from university senior executives and academics in the five university business schools in the North East of England: it focuses on the quantitative findings produced. Whilst prima facie evidence would suggest that universities are strategically embedding and integrating third stream strategies alongside first and second stream activities, a critical analysis of the research data revealed that this was clearly not the case. Empirical evidence from the research indicates that there are strategic failings in universities. This research contributes to the existing literature which highlights the academic pressures in embedding the third stream in higher education institutions.

Through the lens of UK CATAPULT Centres this conceptual paper presents an examination of the links between open innovation, the Triple Helix model and regional innovation systems. Highlighting the importance of boundary-spanning intermediaries, the combined role of these concepts is explored in detail. A conceptual model is then proposed which shows how the Triple Helix model of innovation occurs within regional innovation systems, and how it is underpinned by open innovation principles. Finally, areas requiring further research are discussed, with a call for further emphasis on and exploration of the overlapping nature of the concepts.

Policy makers and others charged with driving economic growth often assume a link between entrepreneurship education and business start-up. However, there is little by way of supporting literature in this regard, with few studies exploring impact measures that relate to actual venture creation. This paper considers two routinely collected data sets in the UK that directly relate to graduate self-employment and business start-up over a five-year period--the Higher Education-Business and Community Interaction survey (HE-BCI), and the survey of Destinations of Leavers of Higher Education (DLHE)--and explores whether the data can be used to assess impact. There is some evidence that HE-BCI may be affected by changes in data collection requirements, but it remains the most complete, extensive and useful longitudinal data set on graduate business start-up. DHLE would appear to be the best source of data for measuring the impact of both enterprise education and start-up support initiatives at an institutional level.