HEINNOVATE REVIEW BULGARIA Andrea-Rosalinde Hofer |Sofia, 26 September 2014

The HEInnovate working definition

The entrepreneurial & innovative HEI is …

• designed to empower students and staff to demonstrate innovation, creativity and enterprise in teaching, research and third mission

• its activities are directed to enhance learning, knowledge production & exchange in a highly complex and changing societal environment

• as an organisation, it is dedicated to create public value via processes of open engagement

The Entrepreneurial & Innovative HEI

www.heinnovate.eu

HEInnovate Review Objectives

Provide an external expert/peer perspective in order to:

1. Identify key barriers & opportunities at HE system and HEI levels

2. Develop recommendations and introduce „learning models“ to remove barriers & to make use of opportunities

1. Preparation (January-March 2014)

2. Study visit (19-23 May) to five case study universities

3. Online surveys of HEI-Leader and students (June - October)

4. Intermediate report on case study universities (July )

5. HEInnovate workshop (September)

6. Final report (October 2014)

Review process - six phases

HEI-Leader and student surveys

Botevgrad

Svishtov

Student Survey

Student Survey &HEI-Leader Survey

HEI-Leader Survey

Student survey – subsample with high entrepreneurial intentions (n=196)

• Gender:

• Study progress:

• Stay on in region?

Barriers in the higher education system

1. Absence of a clear & visible national strategic anchoring of HEIs´ role in local and regional development

2. Separation of teaching and research

3. Legal framework for public private partnerships and public procurement renders for public HEIs business collaboration difficult

4. Burdensome accreditation process

5. Lack of effective HEI-HEI coordination and collaboration at national and regional/local levels

Challenges for HEIs

1. HEIs are struggling to find strategic roles in local development; they are unaware of opportunities

2. Effective involvement of industry and business partners in curricula design & delivery is rare

3. Knowledge exchange activities are largely bound to personal motivation and not part of core-strategy

4. Too few examples of truly interdisciplinary education activities

5. LLL offer is receptive demand-driven instead of proactive demand-setting

6. Organising internships is difficult 7. Barriers in scaling up entrepreneurship promotion from

individual initiatives to core-strategy8. Links with the entrepreneurship ecosystem are largely

underdeveloped

Session 2

Comment:

Current HEI practices in entrepreneurship support and

students` demand

Offer & demand for teaching methods in entrepreneurship education

n: 17 HEIs, 196 students

Offer & demand for start-up support

Provision of financial resources

Mentoring by entrepreneurs

Internationalisation support

Assistance with IP

Support business plan competitions

Mentoring by university staff

Applications for public funds

Access to research results

0% 50% 100%

Offered

Planned

n: 10 HEIs, 196 students

Perceptions of start-up barriers

Finding suitable office space/business premises

Hiring and managing skilled workers

Access to technology and research

Access to public financial support

Having insufficient business management knowledge and skills to implement the business

idea

Lack of a business idea

Having insufficient technical knowledge and skills to implement the business idea

Unfair competition

Bureaucratic hurdles in registering/running a business

Lack of capital

0% 50% 100%

AgreeNo opinionDisagree

n: 196 students