European Summer University on Entrepreneurship Education and Research

The ESU Concept

The main idea of the ESU – concept is to gather people with similar views and interests who have a strong desire to share their knowledge and experiences in both entrepreneurship research and entrepreneurship education. A core element of the concept is to develop European network, fed by European culture and roots in their diversity and their specificities to facilitate, promote and foster the research and, doctoral education on entrepreneurship.

The ESU represents an academic “community in practice” that values democratic dialogue between PhD students, researchers and professors. It facilitates entrepreneurial learning and teaching research competences in entrepreneurship and stimulates cross-national and multidisciplinary research groups in Europe to work together to pose innovative research questions and projects to gain new understanding of entrepreneurship processes.

It offers a unique platform throughout the academic career from nascent PhD students to supervising professors to learn and work together in entrepreneurial holistic action and reflection-oriented processes. This takes place as interplay between a yearly conference, a four phase PhD programme, shared research activities and publication processes.

Each year the ESU – the European University Network on Entrepreneurship organizes a conference for PhD students, their supervisors and invited entrepreneurship researchers. The ESU conference offers a unique opportunity for PhD students to meet and create their own networks, follow a PhD programme offering ECTS credits, and present their research ideas in the international scientific forum and work on their doctoral dissertation conjointly with supervisors from all over the world. In addition, the idea is to combine scientific sessions and cultural events allowing people to discover the diversity and the cultural richness of different European regions where the universities arranging are located. Thus supervisors, researchers and students from international institutions active in entrepreneurship research and education will come together and implement new ways to promote entrepreneurial thinking and behaviour.

Currently the network includes entrepreneurship research groups from 13 universities, namely Aalto University School of Economics, Finland, Bodø Graduate School of Business, Norway, EM Lyon Business School, France, ISCTE Lisbon University Institute, Portugal, Southampton Business School, the United Kingdom, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece, the University of Sannio, Benevento, Italy, the University of Seville, Spain, the University of Southern Denmark, Denmark, the University of Tartu, Estonia, the University of Twente and TSEBA, the Netherlands, Tallinn School of Economics and Business Administration of Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia and Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium.

Three boards, Scientific Board, PhD Programme Faculty Board and a Publishing Board regularly organize meetings to address specific questions in relation to the strategy of the network, the PhD programme and the publication projects.

The first ESU conference was launched in 2002 in France at the University of Valence, hosted by Professor Alain Fayolle. It can be considered the initiator of the ESU – the European University Network on Entrepreneurship concept. The second summer university dedicated to entrepreneurship research and education in Europe was organised 2004 by the University of Twente in The Netherlands, hosted by Professor Aard Groen. The third ESU, in autumn 2006, was organised in Finland at the University of Tampere, School of Economics and Business Administration and devoted to entrepreneurship education, hosted by Professor Paula Kyrö. The fourth conference was held in Norway in 2008 at the Bodø Graduate School of Business, hosted by Professor Odd Jarl Borch and in 2009 the conference was held in the Sannio University of Benevento, Italy, hosted by Professor Maria Rosaria Napolitano.