Cultivating the entrepreneurial spirit among students is crucial to foster innovation and creativity. By exposing students to entrepreneurial concepts and opportunities, you will empower them to think criticallysolve problems and take initiative. This commitment not only prepares students to be dynamic in the job market, but also equips them with the skills needed to start their own businesses and create a successful future.

At Cardiff Metropolitan University, entrepreneurship is ingrained in our learning, teaching and student engagement strategy. All academic programs adopt the Cardiff with EDGEwhich exposes students to ethical, digital, global and entrepreneurial opportunities.

We define entrepreneurship using the European Entrepreneurship Competence Framework (EntreComp) which highlights 15 key skills conducive to an entrepreneurial spirit. All programs and activities are mapped against this framework to ensure that our community of learners develop a wide range of key skills.

Engage, empower and equip students

Our support aligns with that of the Welsh Government Youth Entrepreneurship Strategy (YES) which focuses on three themes; engage, empower and equip. We offer activities at every level to ensure appropriate support for each individual at every stage of their entrepreneurial journey. ‘Engage’ involves light engagement activities such as information stands, conferences and networking events, ’empower’ focuses on developing key business skills – for example, through our weekly workshops which cover topics like finance for founders or starting a business. small businesses, while ‘equip’ level support is suitable for our students who are actively starting a business and includes one-on-one business advice meetings, intensive business bootcamps and test trading opportunities.

Alongside this journey, we regularly collect student feedback on what we offer, what students would like to see in the future and what topics or skills they feel they could improve on so that we can ensure our offering meets their needs. needs.

Program provisions

With a committed academic staff, the Cardiff Met Center for Entrepreneurship is regularly called upon to offer specialist support and deliver a range of workshops which act as a ‘ready to go’ framework tailored to the subject required and delivered to an appropriate academic level. Topics include developing an entrepreneurial mindset, an entrepreneurial approach to the world, a sustainable future, networking, presentation skills and more.

The success of our efforts regularly leads to requests to collaborate on live modules to provide practical, real-world experience, as demonstrated by Cardiff Met’s MSc Marketing students receiving real social media consultancy briefs from our network of qualified start-ups to be part of their evaluation. .

Business and Entrepreneurship Community

Our new business and entrepreneurship community brings together employees interested in further developing their knowledge of corporate training. Promoted and supported by our Quality Improvement Directorate, the initiative aims to help colleagues develop the entrepreneurial capacity and know-how of their students. Quarterly events are held with short presentations from academics who are currently integrating business or entrepreneurship into their programs to share best practices with others, who in turn are beginning to consider entrepreneurial education in their teaching. This orientation allows multiple colleagues to connect to the agenda through the lens of their discipline. The community also has a virtual channel, where members can collectively share practices, case studies, external publications and learnings related to corporate training.

Top Tips for Cultivating an Entrepreneurial Mindset

• Getting the wording right is key: Sometimes students see the word entrepreneurship and turn off because they think starting a business isn’t for them. We repeatedly emphasize that entrepreneurial skills are accessible to everyone, regardless of their chosen career path. For example, we run a series of weekly “curious about…” workshops that spark curiosity and exploration, teaching entrepreneurial skills without explicitly mentioning business or entrepreneurship.
• Make your workshops as practical and fun as possible: create interactive and engaging sessions it may seem unrelated to entrepreneurship at first, then illustrate and explain what entrepreneurial skills they have learned through them and how it benefits them.
• Try to ‘plant the seed’ as early as possible with light entrepreneurial skills sessions at Level 4, then build on them to Levels 5 and 6: being consistent with delivery and reaching as many touchpoints as possible will help open up opportunities. students’ eyes on the potential of their newly acquired entrepreneurial skills.
• Embrace collaboration: Find and connect with students and academics who are passionate and interested in entrepreneurship to facilitate collaborations. Through these collaborations, you can showcase the impact you have had and spread it to the rest of the student and academic communities.

We understand the privileged position we are in at the Cardiff Met Center for Entrepreneurship in that we have a dedicated team as well as the support of our university-wide strategy. This allows us to try things, change directions, and take risks to ensure we always provide the best value to our students.

For those wondering how these strategies can be applied with different resources, start somewhere and little by little. Adapt and embrace your own entrepreneurial qualities to become a catalyst for developing them in your students.

Isabelle Ford and Hannah Willis are Enterprise Champions at the Center for Entrepreneurship at Cardiff Metropolitan University.

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Cardiff Metropolitan University is pre-selected for Outstanding entrepreneurial university to the Times Higher Education 2024 Awards #THERewards. A complete list of shortlisted candidates can be found here.