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

CHAPTER 4
Entrepreneurial guidance in higher

education

Guidance needs and requirements change as students mature and attain higher
levels of education. By the time young people leave secondary school and enter
higher education, they need entrepreneurial learning and guidance that is more
sophisticated and diverse than the support offered at upper secondary level.
Higher education institutions (HEIs) in Europe have a particularly important role
in supporting students in their efforts to establish and run potential high-growth
companies that are built around innovation and scientific research.
HEIs across Europe are starting to respond to this demand for
entrepreneurship-oriented guidance and other support, though to a varying
degree. While mainstream guidance approaches are still used, many HEIs are
finding that many of the new, innovative and student-focused approaches to
guidance are having a real impact on the entrepreneurial aspirations of students,
participation rates in entrepreneurship education, and enterprise start-up rates.
Undoubtedly, the degree to which guidance supports the entrepreneurial agenda
of HEIs varies from one country to another as well as between HEIs. Differences
in approaches can be detected also between vocational and academically
oriented HEIs.

This chapter aims to illustrate in practical ways some of the mainstream and
more innovative approaches to entrepreneurship-oriented guidance in Europe: it
does not cover all practices in Europe but sheds light on some successful ones.
The overall goal is to illustrate how guidance is being utilised by HEIs in Europe
as a tool to foster entrepreneurial aspirations, to encourage participation in
entrepreneurial learning and to support the entrepreneurial efforts of students.
Our research shows that guidance has a role to play in three different stages
of student life in higher education (see Figure 11):
(a) entering higher education: guidance plays a pivotal role in guiding young
people into entrepreneurial learning opportunities offered by HEIs. HEIs use
innovative guidance based approaches to raise awareness about
entrepreneurship, to engage young people and to promote the
entrepreneurship learning opportunities offered by the institution. This is in
addition to standard methods of information-dissemination through course
brochures and online information hubs;

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