Entrepreneurship’s Place in Higher Education Institutions in Colombia

Abstract

This document is the result of a research project conducted by the research line from the Entrepreneurship University Network (REUNE, for its initials in Spanish), made by teachers from different associated universities. The purpose of this work is to characterize the state of entrepreneurship in Colombian higher education institutions from the REUNE network, taking into account the university’s three substantive missions: teaching, research and outreach. An exploratory study is conducted based on a 45 question survey, applied to the people in charge of the topic in 55 Colombian universities. Results show that the most developed function in the field of entrepreneurship is teaching, followed by outreach and, finally, research. Most institutions have institutional regulations to develop the topic, which leads to concluding that entrepreneurship has modified the universities’ structures and curricula, even though it is still a field being developed with different emphasis and specificities. Finally, the article evidences the need to work on the development of strategies to achieve a contribution to capacity generation from higher education that would encourage these new ventures.