The Emergence of Entrepreneurship Education: Development, Trends, and Challenges for Sustainable Development Goals

Dear Colleagues,

The purpose of this Special Issue is to highlight the key role of Entrepreneurship Education in progressing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Building on the seminal publication by Nikolaos Apostolopoulos, Haya Al-Dajani, Diane Holt, Paul Jones, and Robert Newbery (2018), Entrepreneurship and the Sustainable Development Goals, this new issue of the journal Sustainability will focus on the impact that Entrepreneurship Education in particular is having on individual and collective SDGs. Now more than ever before there is a need for the SDGs to progress from awareness-raising to real impact and measurable outcomes that demonstrate progress towards achieving the Global Goals. Entrepreneurship Education has traditionally focused on developing entrepreneurs and the competencies required for business start-up, and on preparing individuals for intra/corporate entrepreneurship. What has until recently remained largely absent are considerations of the purpose and methods of Entrepreneurship Education, in relation to how these might contribute to social and environmental progress. Indeed, there is increasing recognition of the seminal role that eco- and social entrepreneurs play in society in developing new and innovative projects. The top 100 global projects in Sustainia100 (2016) demonstrated that there are thousands of real projects benefiting from such entrepreneurship skills, and entrepreneurship students today are benefiting from access to real cases with demonstrated outcomes. Further, the world’s largest entrepreneurship competition related to the SDGs, Enactus, demonstrates the value of developing real entrepreneurship skills related to the SDGs in gaining employment, with Enactus students being 50 times more likely to be recruited than the average graduate. Seminal research such as that by Moon (2021) highlights the critical role that empathy, compassion and connectedness to Nature play in developing the necessary ecological and social mindsets of entrepreneurs. In fact, the International Entrepreneurship Educators Conference (IEEC) now has a special track co-chaired by Chris Moon dedicated to the SDGs. Moreover, the recent publication by Jones et al. (2021) reveals that universities are now embracing the sustainability agenda much more seriously. Thus, the authors of this Special Issue are keen to explore the key role that Entrepreneurship Education with an emphasis on practice is having on progressing the SDGs. The outcomes can relate to real impacts on SDG-related projects or other measurable outcomes related to teaching and research linking Entrepreneurship Education to the SDGs. Conceptual as well as empirical papers are welcome.

References

Apostolopoulos, Nikolaos., Al-Dajani, Haya., Holt, Diane., Jones, Paul and Newbery, Robert, eds. Entrepreneurship and the Sustainable Development Goals. Contemporary Issues in Entrepreneurship Research, 8 . Emerald, pp. 47-68. ISBN 9781787563766.

Enactus UK (2022). Retrieved from https://enactusuk.org/.

Jones, P., Apostolopoulos, N., Kakouris, A., Moon, CJ., Ratten, V., Walmsley., (2021). Universities and Entrepreneurship. Meeting the Educational and Social Challenges, Contemporary Issues in Entrepreneurship Research, Emerald Publishing, ISBN: 978-1-83982-075-5.

Moon, CJ., (2021) Entrepreneurship and Sustainability: Plugging the Green Skills Gap with Empathy, Compassion and Connectedness to Nature, in Apostolopoulos, N., Chalvatzis, K., Liargovas, P., (Eds.) (2021) Entrepreneurship, Institutional Framework and Support Mechanisms in the EU, Emerald Publishing.

Sustainia100 (2016) A Guide to 100 Sustainable Solutions. Sustainia. Retrieved from: https://issuu.com/sustainia/docs/sustainia100_2016.

Dr. Christopher Moon
Dr. Andreas Walmsley
Dr. Nikolaos Apostolopoulos
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• sustainability
• entrepreneurship education
• UN SDGs
• global goals