Characteristics of Competitive Entrepreneurship Education Ecosystems Around the World: Implications for Qatar

Abstract

Qatar’s entrepreneurship education ecosystem has grown tremendously with major institutions set up by the government to support aspiring entrepreneurs. Select incubators and free zones have been established over the past decade to offer a range of programs for entrepreneurs to get educated and make informed decisions. Although these efforts have helped entrepreneurs in Qatar launch their enterprises, major issues remain unaddressed for the government in using entrepreneurship as an economic diversification tool through streamlining more Qatari youth to become successful entrepreneurs as elsewhere in the world. With this being the overarching motivation, this research aims to explore entrepreneurship education ecosystems in six major economies and entrepreneurship hubs, including UAE, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, United States and Qatar, to draw policy implications and improvements for Qatar’s entrepreneurship education ecosystem. _x000D_ _x000D_ The key questions addressed in this research include: what are the characteristics of a competitive entrepreneurship education ecosystem? What are the government-level policy initiatives for entrepreneurship education in each of these countries; what are the institution-level initiatives for entrepreneurship education in these countries; what is impact of the policies and institutional initiatives on entrepreneurs? _x000D_ _x000D_ Findings from studying the entrepreneurship ecosystems in the target countries unearthed interesting conclusions and recommendations to help improve Qatar’s entrepreneurship education ecosystem to the next level. These recommendations in form of concrete policy recommendations range from making the existing education system in Qatar more entrepreneurial, establishing an independent government policy initiative, or body, to safeguard entrepreneurship education in Qatar, encouraging more public and private partnerships within the ecosystem to enhance entrepreneurship education, increasing universities-industry collaboration to allow research-empowered innovations to find a natural flow in addressing the pressing needs of the industry, and finally, designing an entrepreneurship-focused degree program in universities across Qatar to find alternative study options for youth to pursue and acquire entrepreneurship skills as a discipline.

Date of Award	2017
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	HBKU College of Islamic Studies