Entrepreneurship at Flinders among best in Australia

The university business incubator named best in the Asia-Pacific has had a meteoric rise in its contribution to enterprise education in Australia.

Flinders University’s New Venture Institute has emerged as one of the fast movers in a major review of entrepreneurship education in Australia’s tertiary sector.

The peer reviewed research, recently published in the journal Education and Trainingshowcases Flinders’ rise from 18th position in 2015 into the top 5 in 2019, highlighting the NVI’s industry leading capabilities in entrepreneurship ecosystems.

The report’s authors noted Flinders’ rapid capability growth in the field, with the NVI playing a key role in embedding global best practice initiatives.

The age of start-ups, innovation and disruption has triggered an increase in the number of universities offering entrepreneurship courses, and the NVI has been recognised for its focus on creating start-ups, acceleration and capability building, according to report authors Alex Maritz, Quan Nguyen and Martin Bliemel.

“The New Venture Institute focuses on three areas of Innovation and Enterprise education: creating start-ups, acceleration and capability building. This is done in a holistic, experiential, immersive I&E program that speaks to a range of fields, improving the student experience and outcomes upon graduation,” they say in the new report. 

NVI Director Matt Salier says the results validate the immensely challenging work NVI and the Innovation and Enterprise (INNO) teams, led by Associate Professor Margaret Ledwith and Senior Lecturer Bert Verhoeven, have been doing over the past three years to embed an INNO brand across all colleges at Flinders University.

“The results highlight the foresight of the strategic relationship with Temple University, the UBI accelerator award in 2018, and the numerous incubator support programs we run,” Mr Salier says.

“The market connectedness is a key differentiator at Flinders, with the combination of accredited and non-accredited cross over in our activities, one of the most dynamic components of the Flinders vision, at the core of this success.

“Working hands-on with students in accredited programs in the morning, start-up entrepreneurs in the afternoon, and SME (small to medium enterprise) CEOs in the evening is critical to the skill development of all these groups and something unique across the universities assessed.”

Entrepreneurship education ranking fluidity at Australian HEIs
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