Creating Prosperity: the role of higher education in ... - Universities UK

Creating Prosperity: the role of higher educationin driving the UK’s creative economy464.107 At least in part, this apparent discrepancy may relate to differences in definition and in the extentto which entrepreneurship is made explicit within creative disciplines. There is a long tradition ofpractice-based and experiential learning in creative disciplines, which is often strongly aligned withentrepreneurship skills. However, this link may be implicit rather than explicit, in part due to negativeperceptions among both students and academics regarding entrepreneurship (Higher EducationAcademy Art Design Media Subject Centre [ADM-HEA] and NESTA, 2007).q‘In this industry the most important skills that recruits can have are communication and creativity. It is my beliefthat by fostering relationships between business and academic institutions we can ensure that graduates leaveuniversity with the necessary skills to make their mark on the business world.’Chris van der Kuyl, Chief Executive, brightsolid4.108 It is also important to draw a distinction between entrepreneurship education and training graduatesfor success in precarious labour markets. In our consultations there was considerable resistance tothe idea of universities training students to fill out tax returns. There was more enthusiasm, however,for provision that could encourage graduates to be more enterprising, whether in their own businessor as an employee.4.109 These issues notwithstanding, it is clear that entrepreneurship education does take place in thecreative disciplines, and is typically delivered through a subject-specific module and integrated intopractice-based learning and project-based learning, rather than being part of a general businessstudies course (ADM-HEA and NESTA, 2007).4.110 In many ways, this should be unsurprising, as learning by doing and reflection on and application ofknowledge arising from the learning process are key elements of both entrepreneurship and creativepractice. In this respect, the pedagogy of practice-based creative education may be particularly wellsuited to developing entrepreneurship learning, although there is a need for a clearer frameworkto support greater consistency (ADM-HEA and NESTA, 2007). As entrepreneurship and enterprisebecome increasingly relevant in the context of economic recovery, the finding that creative educationprocesses may be particularly effective in developing some of these skills may be of wider importance.4.111 Research also suggests that entrepreneurship education is best delivered in partnership with industry(ADM-HEA and NESTA, 2007). Despite the fact that as much as 80 per cent of the curriculum insome creative arts, media and design courses may be taught by teacher-practitioners who also workin the creative industries (Clews, 2008), the level of collaboration with industry partners in coursedevelopment is considerably lower (ADM-HEA and NESTA, 2007), although our research suggeststhat this is changing.4.112 The case studies suggest that many institutions are placing increasing emphasis on entrepreneurshipeducation with strong links into industry. For example, within the Creative Employability Studio(above), arts and design students comprise approximately half of the annual university-wide places(and funding) on the entrepreneurship education programme.4.113 The example of FuelRCA (see over) is interesting in that it makes clever use of recent graduates,thereby engaging industry in a way that keeps provision fresh and relevant, and reinforces the ideaof enterprise as a lifelong learning activity.4.0 Higher education’s contribution