Entrepreneurship development plays a determining role in both Entrepreneurship education, and Business creation programmes. Within the European Union, entrepreneurship education has become a hot issue. In 2006 the EU launched the Oslo Agenda for Entrepreneurship Education and in late 2008 a survey was published on the state of entrepreneurship in higher education in Europe. Pilot protects have subsequently been started to encourage the educational sector to incorporate entrepreneurship education in the overall curricula. In a similar fashion, growing attention for business creation programmes resulted in the implementation of mechanisms to stimulate and promote business creation. Often these programmes aim to create jobs and generate income targeting special groups such as youth, unemployed, women or migrants.
Interestingly when studying entrepreneurship development programmes, many easily and erroneously (!) overlooks ongoing activities in developing countries. Triodos Facet, SPARK and INHolland would argue that these efforts should not be ignored and that entrepreneurship education and business creation programmes in developing and transitional countries can be a vital learning tool for everyone considering improving their own programs, policymaking and projects.
Moreover there still is ample room for improvement in entrepreneurship development programmes in
general. For instance, relatively little is known about the effects of entrepreneurial education on the entrepreneurial mindsets of European studies. Many business creation trajectories are said to sort little sustainable impact. Unfortunately however, such critical evaluations are often carried out in an isolation from outside the mainstream. As yet, there has been limited sharing of experiences and lessons learned amongst practitioners, likewise when considering the dialogue between researchers and practitioners.
Given the rather fragmented nature of both the undertaking and the evaluation of entrepreneurship development programmes more interaction between practitioners and researchers is required. The organisers of this conference therefore invite you to The Entrepreneurship Development Conference 2009 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Key questions that will be addressed during the conference:
1. What is the impact of entrepreneurship education and business creation programmes?
2. What are the current entrepreneurship education and business creation methodologies?
3. What can be learned from other parts in the world, developing, transitional and developed countries alike?
4. What are the future challenges in entrepreneurship education and business creation programmes?