Dutch Centres for Entrepreneurship – DutchCE

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The Dutch Centres for Entrepreneurship (DutchCE) is a network created to allow university resource centers to pool capacity to promote joint research and knowledge sharing on entrepreneurship education, at low operational costs.
What are the main aims and objectives?

The initiative was started by universities as a way to facilitate cooperation on entrepreneurship education, notably in the context of the organization of joint events such as the Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW). The DutchCE network aims to (i) Strengthen entrepreneurship education; (ii) Strengthen entrepreneurship research; (iii) Apply entrepreneurship education and research; (iv) Support policymaking and (v) Represent and promote the Dutch ecosystem. Additionally, the Dutch CE aspires to stimulate an entrepreneurial society in the Netherlands, aligning with the nation's highly developed knowledge-based economy. It aims to foster national cooperation and synergies between regional ecosystems, thereby creating a solid foundation for startups and scale-ups.

How does the program work?

The DutchCE operates by fostering national cooperation and creating synergies between regional ecosystems to stimulate an entrepreneurial culture in the Netherlands. It carries out a variety of initiatives to achieve its objectives. These include policy interventions that are categorized into three main areas: improving institutional and regulatory conditions, providing direct support to entrepreneurs and startups, and implementing holistic place-based initiatives. DutchCE also promotes an entrepreneurial culture through awareness campaigns and entrepreneurship competitions, while also working to remove administrative and regulatory barriers. One of its significant programs is the facilitation of seminars and PhD schools that aim to educate and encourage potential entrepreneurs.

Eligibility

Target beneficiary groups of this initiative are:

  • Higher education institutions
  • Aspiring entrepreneurs and early-stage entrepreneurs (pre-launch to growth)
What is the overall cost?
There is no available information on the cost of the DutchCE.
How was it implemented?

DutchCE is the network of Centers for Entrepreneurship in public universities and universities of applied science in the Netherlands. It was created as a bottom-up initiative and involves 20 higher-education institutions (HEIs), 6 major incubators/accelerators, and 4 key partner organizations over the country. Centers have regional outreach, and offer entrepreneurship programs for students, staff, and local entrepreneurs.

Each Centre monitors its activities independently. No network-wide evaluation has been conducted. However, many DutchCE participants have shared reports on their activities.

Work on improving metrics and coordination is ongoing. Three of the Centers are also on the advisory board of the European Union-supported Evaluation of Entrepreneurship Education Programs in Higher Education Institutions and Centers (EEEPHEIC) project, which is developing a toolkit to assess impact of entrepreneurship education programs.

Timeline

2015-20 (ongoing)

Monitoring + Evaluation Methods

Each Centre monitors its activities independently. No network-wide evaluation has been conducted. However, many DutchCE participants have shared reports on their activities.

Work on improving metrics and coordination is ongoing. Three of the Centres are also on the advisory board of the European Union-supported Evaluation of Entrepreneurship Education Programmes in Higher Education Institutions and Centres (EEEPHEIC) project, which is developing a toolkit to assess impact of entrepreneurship education programmes.

What impact has been measured?

While there is no published evaluation of DutchCE as a whole, some centres share information on their activities and achievements. The Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship (ECE), for example, estimated that the 150 companies located at its campus have created 850 new jobs since its opening. Over 5000 students have followed entrepreneurship education or participated in events at the centre. Founders and innovators from around 1500 companies have also been supported through programmes: about 500 entrepreneurs have followed the validation and incubation programmes, and another 950 participants from SMEs and other firms have followed the New Business Cycle or another entrepreneurship education programme at the ECE.

Similarly, UtrechtCE reports 157 users over 2011-16, of which 63% successful launched a business. The centre estimates that supported firms have collectively generated EUR 84 million in revenues and created 1 125 jobs (Utrecht University, 2017).

What lessons can be learned?

A challenge that has been identified by DutchCE members is that entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education is not a core mission of universities. As such, it is not embedded in university budgets, which affects long-term planning and makes it more difficult to support entrepreneurship research. In practice, some of the centers initially involved in DutchCE have been closed, and many have shifted activities to focus more on acceleration and technology transfer and less on entrepreneurship education and research activities.

Another challenge that has been identified by centers is a difficulty to select appropriate metrics for evaluating their activities. For example, identifying and assessing the development of entrepreneurship courses across institutions and over time is not straightforward, as entrepreneurship courses vary widely in content and may be given under various names.

The DutchCE Network creates linkages between diverse organizations and is not centrally evaluated, as drawing definitive conclusions on its design and implementation is difficult. However, the network is perceived by participants as filling a need for coordination in the ecosystem. It also has the potential to increase impacts of HEI investments in entrepreneurship teaching and start-up support by coordinating activities of different centers: for example, by fostering collaborative research on entrepreneurship and encouraging the development of applied research in this area. Another potential strength of the program is the ability of local centers to develop partnerships in entrepreneurial communities, locally and at the national and international level and connecting students with the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Potential factors for success in developing a similar initiative include the following:

  • Similar initiatives should consider setting strategic objectives and embedding them in the overall strategic objectives of universities.
  • Setting up a network-wide monitoring and evaluation framework could help similar networks set clear objectives for their network and monitor its progress, as well as facilitate peer learning between centers.

CURATED BY

Sarolta Borzasi

Director for Government + Investor Engagement
Embassy of Hungary London
United States