Sweet smell of success

I have always been quite an inventive person, but many universities are like an academic conveyor belt and I wanted my ideas to be worth more than just A grades,” says Angelo Grubisic, 27, from Southampton. “Southampton University helped me see light at the end of the tunnel.”

Grubisic is an astronautics student currently taking a PhD in advanced propulsion and is developing new types of thrusters that could soon be used on small spacecraft. He says Southampton gave him the support to turn his ideas into marketable products.”

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They provided me with a mentor, lots of support, encouragement and small amounts of funds for things like patents. I wanted my ideas to count for something and a good university should recognise that.” Grubisic knew his academic studies could one day become his business, so he chose a university that could support him. But for many students, entry into the world of enterprise is dependent on the institution they choose. This may not just be picking a university you know will support your entrepreneurial aspirations, but one that can help you find them in the first place.

Universities are engines of innovation; graduates have founded around 70 per cent of the 200 fastest-growing companies in the UK. However, a report by the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship (NCGE) into entrepreneurship in higher education carried out last year found less than 50 per cent of 127 universities surveyed had entrepreneurial characteristics.

“These characteristics could be anything from right at the top in terms of leadership – such as a pro vice-chancellor for enterprise – to the entrepreneurial courses they provide, trained teaching staff, enterprise opportunities, and competitions for starting up your own venture,” explains Paul Hannon, director of research and education for the NCGE. “It could also mean they provide funds for developing the curriculum, but also for an individual’s ideas. Entrepreneurship should be woven into the infrastructure and environment of the university – you should almost be able to smell it as soon as you walk on campus!”

This is good news if you are looking for a university to support your entrepreneurial talents, but many students can be frightened by the idea of going into “business”. In his report Towards the Entrepreneurial University, Professor Allan Gibb, an enterprise expert from the University of Durham, explains that enterprise is often seen as the preserve of Wall Street wannabes. “The need for a clarification of the concept of entrepreneurship is paramount. The present model, considerably influenced by [?] the largely corporate business school approach, is exclusively business management focused,” he writes. Gibb explains that entrepreneurs are actually people who “feel” their business and learn by “doing, solving problems, grasping opportunities, copying from others, and mistake making”.

This is totally different to our traditional idea of an entrepreneur, one based on a “corporate model that values order, formality, transparency, rational decision making”. No wonder so many students are put off becoming entrepreneurs!

This is particularly true for female students who can feel that entrepreneurship is an exclusively male venture. “The media has projected ‘business’ as quite a masculine job for decades. If you watch TV or read papers and magazines, it can feel like you have to be as powerful as Richard Branson or Alan Sugar to run a business,” says Muhammad Roomi, director of research for the Centre for Women’s Enterprise at the University of Bedfordshire. “This discourages women from taking the plunge. There is adire need to show ordinary business women as role models so that other women can relate to them.”

The University of Bedfordshire now offers the UK’s first women-only Masters in business administration to encourage more women to find their entrepreneurial feet.However, the need for relevant role models applies to all students, male and female. “Instead of putting role models such as Richard Branson in front of students, universities should be using graduates who recently left the university and have set up successful businesses,” agrees Hannon. “And not just business graduates, but also those who have done subjects such as philosophy or religious studies. These ‘near peer’ role models are far more relevant to students in their own lives.”

Any good entrepreneurial university should be working closely with their alumni to provide examples for other students and – if the graduate is really successful – they may provide funds for the university to further invest in enterprise. Despite the disappointing results of the NCGE mapping survey, it still provided some vital information. “If we had done the same survey a decade ago, we would have had a much smaller percentage of universities with entrepreneurial characteristics, so things are improving,” says Hannon. “The report revealed that embedding enterprise and entrepreneurship education across all disciplines and faculties is a major challenge, but we have made significant headway in fostering the right climate and conditions to do that.”

The results of the survey were so revealing that a Europe-wide survey of nearly 3,000 universities was commissioned. “It will be very comprehensive and for the first time it will show us how many universities are offering what, at which level to how many students,” says Hannon. The results of the European mapping are due to be published later this year.

The NCGE knows that British universities need to become more entrepreneurial and inspiration has come from the Far East. Hannon explains, “We have recently been working very closely with China to establish links between Chinese universities and those in Britain. They have a real entrepreneurial attitude over there.” Chinese universities are not afraid of change, he says, describing how one university amalgamated four or five different campuses to make a super university that graduates 2,000 postgraduates a year.

“Being exposed to that kind of innovation makes you realise what we need in the UK, but we won’t get there if we don’t educate people to think and act like entrepreneurs.” An entrepreneurial university does not just mean an institution that shows you how to write a business plan or make millions. It can develop your talents in setting up new ventures, help you get to grips with business life and, perhaps most importantly, give your self-confidence a boost. You might have the best idea in the world and the skills to make it into a business, but if your university cannot inspire you with the confidence or give you the experience to make it work, your success and, eventually, the whole UK economy could suffer. And that’s not something anyone would want to invest in.

‘It’s nice to have the support of like-minded people walking the same path’

• Southampton University has a reputation for combining academic excellence with entrepreneurial innovation

“We are a truly entrepreneurial university,” says Dr Tony Raven, director of research and innovation services. “It comes from the culture of the whole place. We are a fairly young university and are prepared to take risks and try things that more traditional universities won’t.”

Some of the research topics studied at Southampton give a clue to its entrepreneurial personality. Raven says, “Our research into lasers and fibre optics has changed the world. People thought we were crazy in the beginning, but look where the world is now.” The spirit of entrepreneurship is driven by the students at Southampton, as much as the staff. “It is a ‘bottom-up’ organisation,” says Natalie Norton, the student enterprise officer. “We encourage all students to be more enterprising.

We have our own enterprise society, called Fish on Toast, so we are there to support the students, but then it’s up to them what they want to do.” Southampton runs several enterprise challenges for students – “like a real life version of The Apprentice” – and any involve businesses or charities from the local community so everyone benefits fromthe experience. Angelo Grubisic says one of the best things about Southampton is the ability to join small enterprise groups and exchange ideas. He says, “It’s quite a lonely road to be involved in enterprise, so it’s nice to have the support of like-minded people walking that path with you.”

• Visit www.soton.ac.uk for more information