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A Learning case from The House of Innovation, Stockholm
The Israeli National Erasmus+ Office had the pleasure to virtually host Mr. Rasmus Rahm from the Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship (SSES) on June 15th 2020.
The webinar targeted the Heads of the Entrepreneurship Centers in Israeli HEIs and focused on two relevant topics: (1) presenting SSES's model and experience on how to develop and implement inter-institutional academic courses and (2) concepts of assessment methods of entrepreneurship.
1. SSES's working model and experience in developing inter-institutional cooperation:
SSES is an association of seven HEIs in Stockholm. SSES provides a physical space where students from the different institutions take joint academic interdisciplinary courses and participate in extra curricula activities. The rationale behind SSES design is that face-to-face interactions between people from difference disciplines initiates innovative, fruitful discussion, stimulates new ideas and creates strong partnerships.
The SSES has developed a very strong Alumni network amongst their international students, who constitute 40% out of the schools learners.
SSES offers jointly accredited courses for all cycles. Each institution offers at least 2 academic courses each year. Every new course must be approved by all member institutions in order to be offered by the school.
SSES offers 50% of its content as extra-curricular. This offers more flexibility to students and learners but also provides the school with the ability to experiment; with new course content, new teachers, new methodologies, etc.
SSES in numbers:
• 40% of students become entrepreneurs
• 270+ academic courses delivered
• 300+ extracurricular activities examined
• 15 000+ students have taken part in the different activities
• 1500+ companies operated by alumni
It is interesting to note that out of the initiatives established by graduates, 10% were developed together by partners who met during their time at SSES, while 100% of these collaborative initiatives are a collaboration between students from different institutions. Students who would not have met if it wasn’t for their time at SSES. This data emphasizes the importance of gatherings and the envelope provided by SSES.
The most import message that came out of this session was that although inter-institutional collaboration is challenging and difficult, it is highly important and can generate large activity volume and contributes greatly to the institutions themselves.
2. Concepts of assessment methods for entrepreneurship:
Here you can find Rasmus Ram's dissertation on the topic.
Rasmus presented an unintended experiment conducted by SSES in 2006. 200 students were enrolled to one of the most popular courses offered by the school (ideation). Just before the course was planned to begin, for 100 of the enrolled students the registration was cancelled and they were unable to take the course. The school took this opportunity and followed all of the 200 students for a decade. The results show that 11% out of the students that did not take the course went on to start a company (out of them, 7% survived in the long term). On the contrary, 31% of those that took the course, went on to open a company (with 80% survived in the long term). it can be concluded as a result of this accidental experiment that entrepreneurial education matters and makes a difference. It impacts the number of companies opened which contributes to the wider economy, and the overall lifespan of these companies.
Below are 6 studies from fairly recent times that addresses different elements of success assessment of entrepreneurial education. Unfortunately results are ambiguous: it appears that in the short term entrepreneurial education decreases student's intention to start a company or to go on an entrepreneurial road, but in the long term there is an impact of entrepreneurial behavior.
(2) Teaching personal initiative beats traditional training in boosting small business in West Africa
(3) The impact of entrepreneurship education in high school on long-term entrepreneurial performance
(4) The impact of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurship skills and motivation
(5) The Effects of a Training Program to Encourage Social Entrepreneurship
