PASCAL Briefing Paper 15 - Building entrepreneurship in sustainable learning cities

Please find attached PASCAL Briefing Paper 15,  Building entrepreneurship in sustainable learning cities, written by PASCAL Board Member, Peter Kearns. We offer our thanks to Dr Yuan Dayong of Beijing Academy of Social Sciences for the translation into Mandarin and to Ms. Jihye Han, Doctoral Student at the Free University of Berlin for the translation into Korean, arranged by Professor Han Soonghee of Seoul National University.

Executive Summary

Entrepreneurship is now recognised as an important part of learning city development. The concept is incorporated in the recent UNESCO Cork Call to Action on Learning Cities and in PASCAL EcCoWell 2. There are good reasons for this given current labour market trends in a world of rapid technology development.

While entrepreneurship has traditionally been thought of in the context of business development, the European Commission is clear that it no longer refers only to business –oriented activities ‘but also to an individual’s ability to actualize his or her own ideas through a combination of creativity, innovation, risk-taking, management, opportunity seeking and striving for sustainable development in different aspects of life’ (Yu &  Lee 2017). This broadened concept poses a challenge for learning cities in developing policies and actions to harness entrepreneurship in local, personal, global, and business development. This Policy Briefing is focussed on conceptual, skill, and cultural aspects of building the foundations of entrepreneurship in learning cities.

Entrepreneurship is developed through a combination of skills, behaviours, and attributes. Developing these qualities in a community requires strategic perspectives and partnership that provides for continuity and progression in development. Good learning cities provide ideal frameworks for such partnership with each of the sectors of education contributing, along with a range of partners. Schools lay the foundations for entrepreneurship with basic and generic skills such as problem solving important Social enterprises for young people have a value in developing entrepreneurial skills and attributes in an era of high youth unemployment.

The broadened concept of entrepreneurship set out in this paper has much in common with the OECD Learning Framework 2030 which advocates a similar broad approach across knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values. The OECD Framework includes transformative competencies required in a rapidly changing world to transform our society and shape our futures (OECD 2018b).

The sustainable learning city of the future will be an entrepreneurial society in which innovation and entrepreneurship are normal and continuous. Learning cities should plan carefully to build such a society.