Shaping the Pathways to Entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial Education in Romanian Technical Universities

Over the last twenty years, universities have been facing a period of profound changes and unprecedented challenges with an increased pressure from different stakeholders requiring universities to play an active role in innovation and entrepreneurial education, both in terms of mindset and practical instruments. At the same time, education seems to be an important tool for stimulating entrepreneurship (Backes-Gellner & Werner, 2007; Harris & Gibson, 2008; Kuratko, 2005; Raposo & Do Paco, 2011) as extensive research provides evidence that there is a positive and robust link between entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurship performance (The Small Business Economy, 2007). The main goal of the research was to explore the way Romanian technical universities are adapting to the new market and educational challenges and are embedding entrepreneurship in their curricular and extracurricular activities to enhance entrepreneurial competences in engineering students. The research questions that guided the study were: 1. How are Romanian technical universities infusing an entrepreneurial mindset in engineering students? 2. Which are the engineering programs that implement most entrepreneurial education courses? 3. What are the most frequent entrepreneurship related extracurricular activities implemented in universities? The research was conducted on 5 major Romanian technical universities. The analysis was conducted using a two-step approach: first, a critical analysis of the literature discussing the concepts of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial university and the role of technical Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in shaping entrepreneurial competencies in engineering students and secondly, an exploratory empirical content analysis of the 5 Romanian technical universities' websites and curricula in order to identify the courses covering topics related to entrepreneurship and the extracurricular activities implemented throughout the university during the 2020-2021 academic year.