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Guidance supporting Europe’s aspiring entrepreneurs
Policy and practice to harness future potential

The Latvian example above also shows that the role of private businesses is
developing. They are still involved as sponsors and members of juries but more
and more companies are involved in such competitions by giving real-life
business challenges for students to solve. This is also the case with the Excitera
innovation challenge open to students at the Royal Institute of Technology in
Sweden. The objective of the challenge is to bring together students and
researchers to work on projects proposed by companies. The competition is eight
weeks long and participating teams are made up of a maximum of three people.
In the Czech Republic a popular competition called Czech head is aimed at
scientists, researchers and students (European Commission, 2008a).

4.3.2. Dedicated programmes on building self-confidence and self-efficacy
The entrepreneurial activities of university students depend largely extent on
perceived barriers to and support for new venture creation (Volkmann et al.,
2009). A perceived lack of relevant experience and a lack of self-confidence are
two reasons often cited by students and new graduates for not engaging in
entrepreneurship after graduation (European Commission, 2008a, p. 24).
Confidence is also closely linked to another important characteristic highly
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relevant to the entrepreneurship agenda, self-efficacy ( ). The primary reason is
that a highly efficacious student will have greater confidence in their own abilities
to accomplish a range of activities pivotal to the creation of a new venture. Self-
efficacy also is concerned with commitment to accomplishing goals, which is
necessary for novice entrepreneurs as most have to go through times during
which they need to persist in the face of adversity to convert abstract ideas into
marketable products and services (Vyakarnam, 2005).
Dedicated programmes and activities focused on building the confidence and
self-efficacy of HE students are still few. It is often expected to be the by-product
of many extra-curricular activities but is less frequently the primary focus; instead
many activities seek to build the skill base and raise awareness. The Enterprisers
programme is one of few exceptions (see Example 23). It is built upon values and
activities, which seek to cultivate self-efficacy of participants so that they will try,
learn and persist in the pursuit of entrepreneurship (Vyakarnam, 2005). The
programme was jointly developed by Cambridge University in the UK and MIT in
the US, but is now offered also by universities in Australia, France, Germany and
Malaysia.

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( ) Self-efficacy refers to ‘people's judgments of their capabilities to organise and execute courses
of action required to attain designated types of performances’ to the extent that their ‘level of
motivation, affective states and actions are based more on what they believe than on what is
objectively true’ (Bandura, 1986 and 1997, in Vyakarnam, 2005).

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