UNIVERSITIES should consider hiring more staff with practical industry experience to boost entrepreneurial education in Scotland, according to a report being published today.
The Royal Society of Edinburgh's Business Innovation Forum looked at how young people are being exposed to and equipped with enterprise skills.
While it found a "broadly encouraging picture" it does make a number of recommendations on ways to enhance what is currently available.
Among those is having more teaching staff who have been entrepreneurs, helping lecturers increase their knowledge of industry and setting up a dedicated strategy for each university along with identifying a network on enterprise champions.
The report also calls for the establishment of an Entrepreneurship Education Forum to bring together academia, business support organisations and those working in industry.
The aim would be for the forum to oversee a programme of entrepreneurial education.
Olga Kozlova, director of the Converge Challenge prize and the person who led the research, said: "The Scottish Government's ambitious vision for the nation's entrepreneurial future is welcome, but concerted effort will be needed if we are to see progress in the rates of business creation and research commercialisation across the country.
"A coordinated approach which taps into the great potential held by Scotland's universities will ensure that we gain maximum impact."
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