University of Bayreuth signs “Entrepreneurial Skills Charta”

Since the 2018 summer semester, the University of Bayreuth (UBT) has been supporting all students wishing to pursue a business idea in a focused manner by making a start-up semester possible. Seminars, workshops, and advice for budding entrepreneurs have long been part of the UBT's offering. Since the winter semester of 2021/2022, the University has been offering "Supplementary Studies in Entrepreneurship & Innovation", and since this summer semester, it has also been offering an "Entrepreneurial Skills Programme" (ESP) for top talents, and a programme especially for female founders. In order to strengthen interdisciplinary learning and work in the field of entrepreneurship, UBT is expanding the teaching of entrepreneurial skills to solve societal challenges across all disciplines. This includes the project "U4Impact - The Programme for Entrepreneurial Future Makers". Since December 2020, these offerings have been bundled under one roof - together with intensified research on the topic of company founding - at the Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation. All of this proves beyond doubt that UBT is serious about entrepreneurship education.

Furthermore, it is also about competencies in team leadership, judgement, and problem-solving-oriented action. In order to effectively impart these future competencies to all researchers, students, and young academics, the training of entrepreneurial competencies must be structurally integrated into the curriculum as a cross-cutting motif.

This is the case in Bayreuth. As a university for start-ups, the University of Bayreuth with its Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation and four professorships in the field of entrepreneurship already enjoys pole position in terms of content and structure, with a diverse range of free events and curricular courses in the teaching of entrepreneurial skills. Prof. Dr. Jakob, Junior Professor for Social Entrepreneurship, was involved in the development of the "Entrepreneurial Skills Charter". She says: "To teach entrepreneurial skills, we need teaching formats that appeal to members of all faculties. It's not just about creating structures that enable credits to be awarded in all faculties, for example, but also about engaging participants from all departments - positioning entrepreneurship as a priority for everyone, so to speak, not just as a topic for business students."