How education, stimulation, and incubation encourage student entrepreneurship: Observations from MIT, IIIT, and Utrecht University

• A tool is provided for universities to awaken, stimulate, and incubate student entrepreneur teams.
• The tool is evaluated in three world renowned universities (Utrecht University, MIT, and IIIT) on three continents.
• The role of academic institutions in society is critically reviewed in regards to entrepreneurship encouragement.

Universities across the world are increasingly trying to become more entrepreneurial, in order to stay competitive, generate new sources of income through licensing or contract research, and follow policy guidelines from governments. The most powerful resource universities have to stimulate entrepreneurship is their students. However, there is no evaluated theory on how to encourage students to become entrepreneurs. Through three case studies the entrepreneurial encouragement offerings applied at MIT in the United States, IIIT in India, and Utrecht University in the Netherlands are investigated. The offerings provided by these institutes have been surveyed, interviews about these offerings with university staff have been performed, and reflected upon through interviews with entrepreneurs that graduated from these institutes. The three case studies provide insight in how student entrepreneurship encouragement offerings contributed to students choosing a career as an entrepreneur. Several successful examples of student entrepreneurship encouragement offerings are presented, and a model is proposed on how to effectively encourage entrepreneurship among students. The model supports academic institutes in constructing an environment that encourages student entrepreneurship and aims to help universities convince students to continue their careers as entrepreneurs.