Entrepreneurship education in Europe - insights from Germany and Denmark

Universities all over Europe invest in entrepreneurship education through offering structured programmes. Moreover, incubators and accelerators arise to support and complement fast growing global economy through entrepreneurial activities. Since entrepreneurship education seems to be important for economic development, the development of entrepreneurship education and effective teaching methods are discussed. For this, one university in Germany and one university in Denmark were chosen and researched with ten interviews. The structured comparison of teaching activities and methods indicates several interesting insights. Differences in organisation, structure and teaching methods between both universities could be identified, as well as similar developments concerning entrepreneurship education in general. Both universities do research in the field of entrepreneurship, offer related programmes for bachelor and master students and focus the study programmes on practical experiences, experimental teaching and the involvement of guest lecturers. In addition to that, they offer cross-faculty electives and extra-curricular activities to connect students from different faculties and provide the opportunity to network with investors, support organisations and participate in a business plan competition.