ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR BIOSCIENCE RESEARCHERS Process Study of a Training Programme

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1 ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR BIOSCIENCE RESEARCHERS Process Study of a Training Programme Dr.Sc.(Econ.& Bus.Adm.) Jarna Heinonen, Director M.Sc. (Econ.& Bus.Adm.) Sari Anne Poikkijoki, training manager M.Sc. (Econ.&Bus.Adm.) Irma Vento Vierikko, project manager Turku School of Economics and Business Administration, Small Business Institute Rehtorinpellonkatu 3, FIN Turku, Finland, Phone: , Fax: firstname.surname@tukkk.fi Keywords: entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship, entrepreneurial learning, entrepreneurial directed training, bioscience, academic entrepreneurship 1

2 1 INTRODUCTION Entrepreneurship has been recognized as being of fundamental importance for the economy (Bruyat and Julien 2000) due to its considerable macro and micro level effects (Henry et al. 2003). The role of entrepreneurship is emphasized in different emerging business sectors. E.g the potential of biosciences as a breeding ground of new knowledge intensive enterprise creation is promising. Small companies are an important part of the bioscience industry. Many of the new drug discoveries and innovations are done and developed in the small drug discovery start ups and then later licensed or traded to the big international pharmaceutical companies. Along with the small drug discovery companies a bioscience service sector has evolved to utilize the high tech knowledge for the bioscience sector. It is common to the bioscience companies as well as other new high technology companies that they are entrepreneur driven. There is an entrepreneur or a group of entrepreneurs behind the start up. The bioscience start ups are also technology driven. They have a high R&D expenditure, utilize the latest technologies, employ high skilled work force, and have close relationships to universities and research groups. Entrepreneurship is, thus, reaching new areas in which the concepts of business or entrepreneurship are basically unfamiliar and remote. The concept of entrepreneurial behaviour has become more common, calling for better entrepreneurial skills and abilities for dealing with current challenges and coping with an uncertain future. Attributes usually related to entrepreneurship like an innovative approach to problem solving, high readiness for change, selfconfidence, and creativity are increasingly considered to be a viable platform for economic development in all societies and economic systems. Therefore it has been maintained that the need for entrepreneurship education has never been greater, and the opportunities have never been so abundant. (Henry et al. 2003) An indication of the current interest in entrepreneurship and related education is the growing number of courses and seminars offered by practitioners and universities, as well as the variety of academic literature and articles that have appeared (Vesper and Gartner 1997; Klofsten 2000; Solomon et al. 2002; Katz 2003; Henry et al. 2003). However, the extent to which entrepreneurship is teachable, or even worth teaching, is a matter of debate among scholars (Fiet 2000; Hynes 1996). The aim of this article is to discuss and explore the entrepreneurial directed approach to entrepreneurship education in the university setting among highly knowledgeintensive doctoral students in the field of biosciences. We describe the programme offered by the Small Business Institute of the Turku School of Economics and Business Administration and analyze the viability of the teaching methods and work processes used in reaching the objectives of the programme. Finally, we also attempt to highlight the key success factors and provide insights into the further development of entrepreneurship programmes for specialized academic target groups. In the context of this article, entrepreneurship education refers to such activities as are aimed at developing enterprising or entrepreneurial people and increasing their understanding and knowledge about entrepreneurship and enterprise (see e.g. Garavan and O Cinneide 1994; Kyrö 2003 for a more detailed discussion). Like Garavan and O Cinneide (1994), we prefer to call our experiments the entrepreneurial directed approach, which depicts best what we have been doing and trying to achieve. Our approach is also influenced by several other techniques, including the discovery, experiential, participative and action methods. 2

3 2 TEACHING ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND ENTREPRENEURIAL SKILLS AND BEHAVIOUR Setting objectives for entrepreneurship education can be done from different approaches, which can on a general level be divided into three, and again be included into the planning of one programme: 1) learn to understand entrepreneurship, 2) learn to become entrepreneurial, and 3) learn to become an entrepreneur. They usually overlap, but all have their implications in terms of teaching approaches. (Klofsten 2000; Hytti and O Gorman 2004) According to international research results it would seem that the central idea on the background of entrepreneurship is whatever its short term goals may be on the long term to enhance entrepreneurship, i.e. business start ups. This could be seen as a process: the public at large has to be provided with basic information on entrepreneurship, so that an adequate number of those interested in entrepreneurship would stand out people ready for start up and develop growing enterprises, which are of crucial importance from the economy point of view. On the short term, the only acceptable result of training aiming at new enterprise creation is not, that every participant should start an own business. As important a result is, that after receiving more information on the opportunity, the participant decides that entrepreneurship is not (at least at the moment) a relevant option for her or him (Hytti and Kuopusjärvi 2004). To be able to see entrepreneurship as one career option among many others is also a valid objective for entrepreneurial studies. After getting more experience in work life and having reconsidered their career expectations, entrepreneurship may prove to be a viable option, which is had not been f.ex. during doctoral studies. Schumpeter (1934), who described the entrepreneur as the person destroying the economic order (Bygrave 1989) and to whom entrepreneurship is about alertness to opportunities, creatively destroying of old and creating new patterns, taking and managing risk, and organising and co ordinating resources (Landström 1998; Gibb 2002), referred to an entrepreneurial process of acting in a certain way not to a person. Also, entrepreneurship is about interaction between entrepreneurial individuals and their environment, thus discovery, evaluation and exploitation of opportunities (Shook et al. 2003). In our opinion entrepreneurship and opportunity exploitation are not necessarily synonymous to the creation of new firms, but an event that can also take place in existing organizations (Heinonen and Poikkijoki, forthcoming, see also Shane and Venkataraman, 2000). Thus we come to the concept of intrapreneurship, which is closely related to entrepreneurship, and also emphasizes the entrepreneurial process (carrying out new combinations) and innovativeness (Guth and Ginsberg 1990). At the core of entrepreneurship according to Shane and Venkataraman (2000) is the entrepreneurial opportunity, and the process of discovering, evaluating and exploiting it. Shook et al. (2003) focused on the individual s role in the entrepreneurial process as well. Gibb (1993), again, defines entrepreneurship as a set of behaviours, skills and attributes that someone may exhibit. The purpose of entrepreneurship education as described in this article, is to integrate the skills and attributes of an entrepreneurial individual with the entrepreneurial process and related behaviour (Figure 1). 3

4 PROCESS BEHAVIOURS ENTREPRENEURIAL INDIVIDUAL SKILLS problem solving creativity persuasiveness planning negotiating decision making INTENTION triggering event OPPORTUNITY SEARCH AND DISCOVERY ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROACTIVITY actively seeking goals INNOVATION opportunity search coping with and enjoying uncertainty ATTRIBUTES self confident autonomous achievement oriented versatile dynamic resourceful DECISION TO EXPLOIT OPPORTUNITY EXPLOITATION OF OPPORTUNITY CHANGE taking risky actions in uncertain environments flexibly responding to challenges acting independently on own initiative solving problems/conflicts creatively persuading others commitment to make things happen Figure 1 The entrepreneurial process: behaviours, skills and attributes (elaborated from Gibb 1993; Shook et al. 2003) The facilitation of learning in entrepreneurship education so that it would support the entrepreneurial process is especially challenging. Moreover, a typical university setting is not geared to include such entrepreneurial elements. Traditional teaching methods, lectures, literature reviews, examinations and so on are not the best methods to activate entrepreneurship (see Gibb 2002; Sogunro 2004). If we consider that teaching entrepreneurship involves both arts (e.g., creative and innovative thinking) and sciences (e.g., business and management competencies) (Rae 2004; Jack and Anderson 1999), then traditional teaching methods have to be complemented with the such entrepreneurial approaches (Gibb 1993; 1996; 2002), as learning by doing and providing opportunities for students to actively participate in as well as control and mould the learning situation (Gorman et al. 1997; Fiet 2000). In the university context, the teaching of entrepreneurship is traditionally based on theoretical and practical knowledge. Equally important, however, is the active role of the student in the learning process. In our teaching this individual process is actively encouraged and supported in the group context. It is our understanding that the teaching of entrepreneurship is a process with different phases (Figure 2) based on Kolb s (1984) experiential learning model, according to which reflective observation through abstract conceptualization and active experimentation leads to concrete personal experience. 4

5 Intention TRIGGERING EVENT Understanding about entrepreneurship KNOWLEDGE Experiencing the entrepreneurial process EXPERIENCE Exploiting the opportunity ACTION ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHAVIOUR Figure 2 Teaching entrepreneurship our entrepreneurial approach (Heinonen Poikkijoki forthcoming) The element of experience can be produced on the basis of the theory, and learning will happen as a combination of theory and experience. Theory can bridge the art and science of entrepreneurship (Jack and Anderson 1999). This particular approach is more than just another technique: it is an elementary part of the experiential learning process (see Rodrigues 2004). The teacher should encourage the students to develop their abilities to reflect on their personal experiences and put them in a wider context, as well as to give them the opportunity to make their own theoretical interpretations (Gibb 2002). According to the entrepreneurial directed approach learning is a process of coparticipation (Taylor and Thorpe 2004) among entrepreneurial individuals. The mere intention is a necessary but not as such sufficient precondition for entrepreneurship, additionally some kind of a triggering event is needed. For passing down knowledge, we have used more traditional methods: group work, guest lectures and summary writing. Our specific aim in introducing the entrepreneurial directed approach has been to offer the students experiences of what opportunities could be open to each and everyone. In the next section /Entrepreneurship an interesting opportunity? we describe, how we have implemented in practice this tripartition in our programme, and how it has been experienced by the students. 3 METHODOLOGY This study is based on one particular programme within university level entrepreneurship studies attempting to enhance and foster entrepreneurship in the Graduate Schools in the fields of chemistry, physics, information technology and bioinformatics, life sciences and medicine development at the BioCity of Turku, the joint organ of the research schools. In the delivery of this programme the authors have experimented with the entrepreneurial directed approach of teaching. During and after the programme a combination of quantitative and qualitative research 5

6 methods as well as observation techniques were used in order to evaluate the feasibility and applicability of the approach. All evaluations even those that appear very objective at the outset are somewhat subjective. Learning about entrepreneurship as well as learning to become entrepreneurial belong to the category of individual decisions that are, by definition, always more or less subjective, and thus a qualitative approach is needed when programmes are assessed. (Hytti and Kuopusjärvi 2004) Before the programme officially started a pre programme survey of the entrepreneurial intentions and propensities was conducted among the group. A number of reports based on study visits, business plan assignment and other assignments were collected and evaluated by the teachers. The writing of personal learning diaries was also an integral part of the programme, and the diaries gave important information about students learning as well as about the approach. Finally, the group discussions and exercises that were conducted during the sessions enabled the organizing team to observe the reactions and self reflection of the students. All these observations and written material were carefully analyzed in the context of our approach, and are presented in the following section in order to capture the subjective mindset of the individual students participating in the programme. At the end of the programme a final assessment workshop session was introduced. As a part of our entrepreneurial directed approach the students were asked to reflect upon their own input as well as experiences and personal outcomes of the programme. A post programme survey will also be conducted three months after the programme is finalized (autumn 2005). The results from the final assessment and post programme survey are not yet available and, thus, not discussed in this paper. 4 ENTREPRENEURSHIP AN INTERESTING OPPORTUNITY? PROGRAMME 4.1 Objectives of the programme The Academy of Finland launched in 2004 a pilot Programme in Entrepreneurship to enhance and foster entrepreneurship in its Graduate Schools. In introducing entrepreneurship in the bioscience research schools the Academy is aiming at increasing the number of university spin offs on this important and innovation driven research area. The objectives of the programme were following: increase knowledge about entrepreneurship bring out new aspects of entrepreneurship at the individual level support possibilities of starting up as an entrepreneur and offer access to new sources of knowledge about acquiring relevant business skills. The present programme has been built on the above (chapter 2) mentioned entrepreneurial directed approach to training for entrepreneurship. Our approach is planned to simulate the entrepreneurial process, where the individual passes through the different phases of entrepreneurship: 1 Module: Knowledge What entrepreneurship is?, II Module: Experience What possibilities entrepreneurship offers to me?, III Module: Action How do I seize the entrepreneurial opportunity? The programme consisted of lectures, working in teams and small groups, case presentations and study visits, written assignments and discussion in a virtual 6

7 learning environment, business simulation and writing a business plan. The actual training programme started in October 2004 and was run up till May Selection of participants and group formation In all BioNet Turku research schools have more than 400 students, half of whom in Turku. Announcement of the Entrepreneurship an interesting opportunity? programme was distributed to the students of the above research schools through the BioNet. From the network of 400 students 42 doctoral or post doctoral students enlisted in the Entrepreneurship programme within two weeks and all were accepted. Table 1 Applicants and student of the programme Number of applicants starting the programme Number of students completing the programme Nation ality Gender Finnish 33 Finnish 27 Foreign 9 Foreign 7 Men 16 Men 13 Women 26 Women 21 Total number of applicants 42 Total number of students 34 Of the total number of applicants 26 were women and 16 men. The ages of the participants with a couple of exceptions ranged between Because 9 of the participants, almost a fourth of the group, were foreign students, the organizer decided to deliver the programme in English a fact that was an interesting challenge both to the participants and to the teaching staff. The implications of this decision will be dealt later on in connection of the report of the programme contents and delivery. Two students cancelled his participation before the start of the programme and 6 more dropped out during the first four sessions of the programme, before Christmas Thus around the middle of the programme there were 34 students, who were committed to completing it. The loss of these 6 students is explained partly by reasons of change in the life situation of the students and partly by the fact that some students were obviously found the topic not relevant for themselves to justify the time spent on doing it. In these cases the entrepreneurial aspiration level of the students was low to begin with, as shown by the pre programme survey. 4.3 Pre programme survey A pre programme survey of the entrepreneurial intentions and propensities was conducted among the group in September before the training phase started. The figure 3 below shows the distribution of entrepreneurial intentions of the participants at the time of the pre programme survey. Before the actual programme started the analysis of the results revealed a marked division into two halves, which again had two distinct subgroups as to entrepreneurial intentions. This breakdown placed some 7

8 interesting challenges to the organizers. At one end of the curve the intention level of the students was almost non existent getting slightly stronger towards the median, whereas at the other end some students had a definite intention of becoming entrepreneurs, were planning a business start up, and in one case had already started an enterprise. The results of the pre programme survey make it also easier to understand why some of the students found the programme too demanding or lost their interest at an early phase. Most of them had a very low entrepreneurship intention. Figure 3 Students intention to start up an own company To help the integration of the students to the programme the organizers decided to give the groups partly differentiated training in order to keep the motivation up among all the participants and to let the groups proceed at their own level and space. This arrangement prevented a frustration at both ends of the scale. The lower entrepreneurial intention level groups from then on concentrated on intrapreneurship and entrepreneurial behaviour in large organisations and the higher intention level groups on entrepreneurship, new venture creation and business planning. 4.4 Training process and methods The duration of the programme was altogether 9 months and it included 9 contact days with related assignments, participation in a 12 hour business simulation and preparation of a business plan. The process is described in detail in the following figure (Figure 4). 8

9 RESEARCH pre and post program survey CONTACT TRAINING lectures and workshops (2 nd module intra/entre) cases study visits DISTANCE LEARNING assignments reports, business plan WebCT information, guidance learning diaries reflection of personal development SPECIAL SESSIONS business simulation mentoring sessions MODULE I KNOWLEDGE MODULE II EXPERIENCE MODULE III ACTION EVALUATION, MODIFICATION Figure 4 Training process and methods Research mentioned in the figure 4 covers the pre and post programme surveys of the entrepreneurial intentions and aspirations of the students before the start and three months after the programme. It helped also the students to orientate to the programme and its main content: Enterpreneurship an interesting opportunity? As a part of the pre programme survey the participants were asked to write an imaginary story of themselves as an entrepreneur, which were analysed for clearer understanding of motives and expectations of the participants. Contact training includes lectures, case presentations by acting bio branch entrepreneurs and study visits to a large enterprise and the local bioscience incubator. The cases as well as visits were carefully chosen to enhance each phase in the programme. In modules two and three it also covers the separate, intensive workshops for the intrapreneurship and entrepreneurship groups. The picture shows the division of the participants into intra/entrepreneurship groups during the afternoon workshops of module II. In module III the differentiation was realized in the contents of the special sessions. Distance learning includes inter session assignments, reports of articles and study visits as well as developing a business plan. The assignments were planned to fit into the three sections of the contents: knowledge, experience and action. The participants were asked to chart out sources of information, make a SWOT analysis of their career plans, build a model for their personal networks and write on themes supporting the session contents. WebCT information, guidance and discussion were also parts of the distance learning. An important part of distance learning is the learning diary, which is kept through the programme and serves as a tool of reflection of personal development and notebook of issues, which were most interesting to each participant during the sessions. Special sessions include the business simulation run in two groups (English and Finnish) and the four special theme sessions: Financial management and 9

10 Globalisation for intrapreneurship groups and Business plan development for entrepreneurship groups. The large size and earlier described heterogeneity of the group (to the entrepreneurial intentions) ranging from no intention to definite decision to start an own business made the first three sessions and lectures somewhat difficult to plan and execute to the satisfaction of everybody. The lecturers, case presenters and team work activity leaders were trying to take everyone into consideration, but the original approach had to be reformulated in order to avoid frustration at either end of the interest scale. Discussion was scarce at the beginning, firstly, due to the novelty of the topic, secondly, because of the language mix and, thirdly, because of the kind of selfconsciousness often present in large training groups. The concepts, terminology and way of thinking used were naturally foreign to most of the participants. This firstphase confusion was, however, in a way beneficial to the process as a whole, because the programme was build to simulate the entrepreneurial process, which by definition is a creative and somewhat uncertain one when started from the scratch. The first phase was concentrated on knowledge accumulation of what entrepreneurship is and what could be the opportunities offered by it. Typically the sessions ended in activities, which were designed to enhance also the each individual s understanding of him/herself as a potential entrepreneur. At the end they had to decide whether they wanted to concentrate on intrapreneurship within the framework of a larger organisation or on entrepreneuship. The second phase of the process started from the 4 th session when the group was divided into two parts based on the entrepreneurial intention level (see figure 4) and those again into two small groups. Groups 1 was from then on concentrating on intrapreneurship and entrepreneurial ways of action in the framework within a larger organization, and group 2 on entrepreneurship and new venture creation including the writing of a business plan. The cases and lecturers on the main theme of each contact day were, however, common to all. The differentiation of the contents was mainly realized in the workshops during the sessions, where the intrapreneurship groups focused on the individual as a member of a team in the context of a larger unit and the entrepreneurship group started to identify their business ideas and work on elements of their business plan. At the end of the second phase the members of the two groups were well integrated and discussion was flowing freely in the group work situations and was livelier also during the lectures. The language problem had been largely overcome. The third phase after the business simulation run between modules 2 and 3 was tuned into action and planned to give more practical information on the functioning of the markets, challenges of business growth and information on how to start and plan a business. The module included two study visits to the Raisio Corporation and the Turku Science Park incubator. The final session was to conclude the whole process and discuss the findings. The final session also included a workshop for evaluation of the programme. 5 DISCUSSION At this point and according to the learning diary analysis, the homework assignments and the observation of all the above work processes the key success factors of the 10

11 programme seem to be 1) the division of the group in two groups, 2) flexible tailoring of methods and contents, 3) the process of the homework assignments, and 4) the introduction and timing of the business simulation to provide a hands on business experience to the groups. The division in two groups based on the entrepreneurial intentions made after the first module was a successful decision. It ended the confusion and in some cases even anxiety caused by the heterogeneity of purposes among the group. It was also important that the two groups were not totally separated into two parallel tracks but part of the programme was delivered to all the participants together. However, it contributed to the formation of two separate groups identities and made general discussion and workshop activities more open and lively. It was interesting to see in retrospect that the fact of not being forced along a path to starting a business changed the attitudes of the most intrapreneurially oriented students more positive even towards the entrepreneurial topics and the entrepreneurial part of the programme. The division was a very successful decision and helped to create cohesion and enhance theme development in each group. By the end of phase two after session 6 the groups had overcome all of the initial confusion and the two group processes were making sense to all participants, which had a big impact on the communication among the whole group as well. By that time all those, who had been able to stay (34) were firmly committed to the programme. The multi method approach adopted made flexible tailoring and modification of both the contents and the working modes possible. This contributed to the overall success of the programme as a whole. The 34 students stayed committed to completing the programme and wanted to get the credits granted for the completion. Only some 5 participants found it difficult to fulfill the requirements set for the 15 study points mainly due to language and time related problems. The homework assignments were planned according to the sections of the original programme plan: knowledge, experience and action. The assignments during module I helped the participants to formulate an idea of their career expectations as an entrepreneur and the features of business in the bioscience branch, chart the sources of information available and finally make a SWOT analysis of their career plans. After this process it was easier for them to make the final decision of which of the two optional groups they would like to join. In module II the participants charted and modeled their personal and work related networks, thought out their business idea and wrote article of suitable role models. In module III the entrepreneurship group concentrated on business planning and the intrapreneurship group made reports of company visits, cases and articles. The same processes were supported also by the selected case presentations as all the parts: lectures, assignments and cases were timed to look at the same phenomena and information from different angles thus enforcing the learning process. Especially successful was the 12 hour business simulation run in two groups on two consecutive days. The simulation was placed between modules II and III and the timing proved to be excellent, because it started the action part and provided a hands on experience of business decisions in changing markets. The groups managed exceptionally well and there were no marked differences between the intrapreneurship and the entrepreneurship groups. After the intensive simulation experience the groups were still more open with the teaching staff and with each other and it made the planning and confidential discussions more rewarding. The simulation also drew part of the members of the intrapreneurship group still closer to being interested in actual entrepreneurship. 11

12 For further development of the programme there are some points worth noting and analysis. The aim of the entrepreneurship group was to write a real business plan, but despite the fact that about half of the participants made a business plan still part of those were only imaginary and concentrated on another branch than bioscience. It is however, to be expected that learning the process itself would provide some of the more hesitant ones a framework for future development. The e learning tools provided by the WebCT environment were only partly taken to use. The environment was mainly a storage of information of programmes, learning material and reading references, and a place where the assignments were available for the teachers. Any chat or discussion did not arise among the participants, which is maybe due to the fact that they met each other fairly frequently at the research schools and were communicating either verbally or by e mail. It may also be that other methods of learning were more attractive to the participants and the staff did not encourage or promote web discussions strongly enough in a structured way. However, it is interesting to note that as so much emphasis is today put on e learning, we should critically evaluate how and when it should be used and where the impact of the tools are really enhancing learning. In the future programmes for similar or corresponding target groups the organizers would need to spend more time in finding out the entrepreneurial intentions of the participants at the start phase through workshop discussions, where the different concepts could be explained more explicitly and questions asked and answered in an atmosphere of openness and trust. Starting the programme by interviewing every applicant could also be of value but of course very time consuming and slow. Finding out the entrepreneurial intentions would greatly reduce the initial confusion among the participants, who could, thus, more easily find their standing and focus in the programme. Now this was achieved during the first module through an intensive search process that in some cases did not quite end up with the desired focus. We recommend, thus, to put even more emphasis on recruiting the right` students with the same kind of objectives in order to, on one hand, to increase the effectiveness of the programme and, on the other hand, to avoid the confusion during the early phases of the process. It would also be interesting to run the programme with a clearer business and new venture creation focus and see how the entrepreneurial process would fit into a more targeted mode of work. Our entrepreneurship training programme is a living example of entrepreneurship studies with no clearly enough formulated philosophical foundation, which gives rise to mixed meanings and a conflicting discourse among the students (see Hannon 2004). The objectives of the programme were clearly defined, but the way the students perceived them seemed to be somewhat dependent on their entrepreneurial intentions, which, again, resulted in differences in expectations concerning e.g. the intended outcomes of the programme as well as the role of the educators. Those students willing to learn more about entrepreneurship as an academic discipline, expected us the so called gurus` to transmit the great wisdom of entrepreneurship to them. Some students wanted to acquire a set of entrepreneurial capabilities seeing us as controllers of their learning processes. They wanted us to constantly comment on their achievement and behavior: to know whether they were in the right or the wrong track. For us that was an impossible task, as according to our approach there are no definitely right or wrong answers, but the students need to find out the answers by themselves. There were also some students willing to develop themselves and achieve personal growth within an entrepreneurial context. For them our role as facilitators of their learning process seemed to suit well as they saw that we wanted to support their co learning process. As our training programme 12

13 and our entrepreneurial directed approach were mainly designed to the latter group of students, it is understandable, that some of the others found our approach even bizarre, at least in the beginning, but once the philosophy of our entrepreneurship training became clear to everyone, our approach methods and practices as well as learner/teacher roles and relationships were well justified. (see for more detailed discussion about the philosophical foundations of entrepreneurship education Hannon 2004) Astonishingly enough, there were a number of students who during the programme were supported to take the initiative i.e. to experience their own entrepreneurial process and enjoyed it, even though, in the beginning, they more or less only wanted to increase their understanding about entrepreneurship. As planned, our programme was capable of enhancing the entrepreneurial process of the students and brought most of them at least one step closer to individual entrepreneurial endeavors. We also found out that the entrepreneurial process is something our students, i.e. the graduate school researchers in the field of bio technology and life science, and entrepreneurs have in common. Research in natural sciences involves heavy searching and discovering through experimentation, the basic elements of the entrepreneurial process. As our aim was to support and motivate the students to achieve the fullest of their potential within an entrepreneurial context, we can claim having succeeded in promoting some entrepreneurial spirit and activity within our group of students. At the same time, we are likely to have infused their personal development and growth which may have many positive implications later in workrelated or any other areas of their lives. 13

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