Innovative entrepreneurship

A half-day workshop held for policy-makers, educators & researchers

World economies are being forced to commit to more and more swingeing austerity measures and yet expected, somehow, to simultaneously conjure up economic growth to get out from under their fiscal and unemployment overhangs. At no time has entrepreneurship been more needed — not the general, imitative entrepreneurship, but ambitious, high-performance, high-growth entrepreneurship (successfully commercialising new ideas on a large scale in a short term) which most experts now translate as ‘innovative entrepreneurship’.

The workshop brought together policy-makers, educators and researchers, who, together with invited leaders of the Irish business community, fleshed out the nature and implications of the concept of ‘innovative entrepreneurship’, and identified effective, good-practice education and research approaches and the policy instruments appropriate to the Irish context.

The workshop was part of the Dublin Innovation 2011 festival and was organised by the Community of Innovation Researchers, Tom Martin & Associates/TMA and Dublin Institute of Technology.

New: LinkedIn group — Innovative Entrepreneurship workshop

LinkedIn logo

As promised at the end of the workshop, Thomas Cooney has launched a new LinkedIn group to continue the discussion on innovative entrepreneurship. To join the group, follow this link:

New LinkedIn innovative entrepreneurship workshop group

We look forward to continuing the debate there.

Papers

The following workshop presentations are available:

Robert van der Have presentation

Pauric McGowan presentation

Keith Herrmann presentation

Eucharia Meehan presentation

Who took part in the workshop?

The workshop was attended by representatives of the following groups:

Policy makers

As the term suggests, innovative entrepreneurship lies at the intersection of two important policy domains, innovation and entrepreneurship. There has been a very substantial body of research on both policy areas, but, to date, comparatively little work has been done at their intersection, leaving those charged with policy implementation ‘on their own’ in taking the lead in staking out this vital territory. The workshop tackled relevant policy issues including how to fashion a holistic policy approach to simultaneously target technology, market and institutional opportunities as well as exploring the relevant underlying, contextual determinants.

Educators

The teaching of innovation and entrepreneurship has tended to reflect the lack of integration of innovation and entrepreneurship at a policy level. Advances have been made at both the 2nd and 3rd levels in the teaching of entrepreneurship but it is still not a priority in terms of the overall curriculum. Equally, innovation is on the agenda but the interface between business and technology subjects has presented difficulties within third level institutions.
The workshop gleaned vital clues on how to rapidly accelerate the provision of innovative entrepreneurship education in Ireland.

Researchers

A considerable body of research has emerged in the fields of innovation and entrepreneurship but both while complementary have followed separate trajectories. Over the last decade there are some emerging signs that researchers are beginning to pull the two policy areas together. In formal research terms, innovation has only recently become an identifiable area of activity, as reflected in the establishment of the Community of Innovation Researchers but entrepreneurship issues are only now being seen as an important area of study within a broader innovation context; these and other issues were explored in the workshop.