This blog is the first in a series of three arising from discussions during and reflections after a REntEd SIG ISBE/EEUK webinar called “Research vs Scholarship”. 

If your job requires you to “do Scholarship”, you have probably noticed two things. First, nobody quite agrees on what that means. Second, asking for clarification feels oddly risky and shameful, and that the question would somehow reveal your ignorance on a topic about which everyone else is an expert. 

But you are not alone in feeling confused when it comes to knowing what “Scholarship” means in Higher Education. 

The search for a definition

The REF 2029 defines research (see Section 4, 5.3.2 in Eligible outputs) as “a process of investigation leading to new insights, effectively shared.”. Professor Hannah Cobb of the University of Manchester’s definition of scholarship which we really like is “evidence-based systematic practice that positively impacts student outcomes or experience and is disseminated for critical review and, where appropriate, adoption by others.” 

Both are valid and reasonable but not that helpful if you’re trying to distinguish Scholarship from Research in your Performance Review or promotion application. The trouble is that both can be used to define a great deal of the same activity. Where there is a difference, it is less about the work itself and more about who it serves and which institutional category of recognition it falls into. 

The REF definition of research is very broad. Definitions of scholarship aren’t less clear or defined — they’re just less established as norms. 

From Boyer’s seminal work defining four scholarships (1990 – see Chapter 2)  to Braxton, Luckey & Helland’s (2002) inventory of scholarly activities (see Appendix B)  and the DARSHE framework (Gann & Hulme, 2025) to name only a small selection, there is plenty of academic literature engaged with the question of defining the full range of academic work beyond what typically counts as “Research”. None of it converges on a single answer as you might expect of such a diverse range of activities, but we argue that it doesn’t need to. 

Problematic ambiguity

The problem is that Research work has well-established metrics: citations, grant income, outputs in top journals, completed PhD supervisions, for example, and Scholarship work does not. This asymmetry creates a hierarchy in which Scholarship feels like the “other” thing, the thing that isn’t proper “Research”. Scholarship is often not as highly valued in institutions because it is arguably more complicated to measure, it is less clearly linked to REF funding, and ways to measure it haven’t been around as long.  It feels a bit like the qualitative versus quantitative debate where researchers can agree which sort of research they do but disagree on which sort is better. 

Education-focused colleagues in our webinar clearly felt this way. Some described a need for permission to do what felt like “play,” a sense of being watched, or waiting to be found out for working on something they cared about. Some described guilt about publishing when their contract gives them no formal research time, and an urge to be secretive, or at least not to broadcast activities that were not teaching, administrative, or marking.  

Asking a different question

Instead of trying to find a global and objective definition of “Scholarship”, just find a working definition for your own context.  Every institution will have its own vocabulary when it decides what counts and uses that information to make decisions.  

In practice that means: 

• Finding your institution’s definition of Scholarship – usually embedded in promotion criteria somewhere  

• Noticing the words it uses, and adopting them yourself to describe your “non-research” work 

• Pairing your work with a published framework, using the literature to validate and legitimise your categorisation. 

In these ways you can translate your activity in your context to so that it is legible to and consequently valued in your own institution. 

You have to be a bit of a shape shifter for your work to be understood in your own context 

Does this approach actually help?

In our recent webinar for the REntEd SIG (EEUK / ISBE), participants’ average self-rated clarity on the difference between Research and Scholarship rose from 3.2 to 4.3 out of 5 and their confidence in explaining it to others rose from 3.0 to 4.3. We think this improvement didn’t come from having access to new information; it came from being given a structure for thinking it through.

You can access the webinar slide deck here. 

Find out more 

Dr Kelly Smith and Dr Lucy Hatt have also created a companion one-page guide to give you a starting point using three lenses (contract, progression, identity) supported by some useful frameworks.  

Watch out for the next post in this series where we look at how to make the work itself more visible once you have the language to describe it. 

Higher education is one of the last environments where we can meaningfully influence entrepreneurial aspirations before students enter the labour market. If we want more women to pursue entrepreneurship, we need pedagogical approaches that actively support confidence, belonging, entrepreneurial identity development and participation. Authentic Leadership Pedagogy is one such approach. 

Why Do So Many Talented Women Still Not See Themselves as Entrepreneurs? 

Over the past few years, we have noticed a recurring pattern across both undergraduate and postgraduate entrepreneurship and management programmes. While female students often perform just as strongly as their male peers academically, they are frequently less likely to volunteer entrepreneurial ideas, participate in pitching activities, or view entrepreneurship as a realistic career pathway for themselves. This is not a question of capability. Rather, it raises an important question for enterprise educators: why do so many talented women still struggle to see themselves as entrepreneurs? 

Part of the answer may lie in how entrepreneurship continues to be portrayed and experienced. Entrepreneurship is often associated with characteristics such as competitiveness, assertiveness, individualism and risk-taking, while successful entrepreneurs remain disproportionately represented by men. As a result, many women may struggle to identify with entrepreneurial stereotypes despite possessing the skills, creativity and potential required to succeed. 

This matters because entrepreneurship is not only a pathway to venture creation, but also a mechanism for innovation, economic development, social impact and value creation. If significant numbers of capable women do not see entrepreneurship as something that is relevant or attainable for them, we risk overlooking ideas, perspectives and entrepreneurial talent that could benefit our communities, economies and wider society. 

Confidence Before Competence? 

This is particularly important because the barriers many women face are not necessarily related to capability or academic performance, but to confidence, self-belief and whether they perceive entrepreneurship as a pathway in which they can belong and succeed. If we want more women to pursue entrepreneurship, we need pedagogical approaches that actively support belonging, participation and entrepreneurial identity development. Authentic Leadership Pedagogy offers one potential approach for creating these conditions. 

As educators, we often focus on building entrepreneurial knowledge and skills. However, women are unlikely to engage fully with entrepreneurial opportunities if entrepreneurship continues to be perceived as a pathway that is not open or relevant to them. Increasing participation therefore requires more than developing entrepreneurial capability. It also requires creating learning environments that challenge stereotypes and broaden understandings of who can become an entrepreneur. 

Creating Space for Future Entrepreneurs   

Authentic Leadership Pedagogy focuses on self-awareness, reflection, relational support, transparency and inclusion. Rather than focusing solely on entrepreneurial knowledge acquisition, it encourages students to explore their strengths, values and aspirations while developing confidence in their own capabilities. Like experiential and project-based learning approaches, it supports entrepreneurial capability through active participation, practical application and exposure to authentic entrepreneurial experiences. Importantly, however, it also creates opportunities for students to see themselves as potential entrepreneurs and to engage with entrepreneurship in ways that feel personally meaningful and authentic. 

In our own teaching, this includes reflective activities, collaborative teamwork, purpose-driven entrepreneurial challenges linked to social impact, sustainability and value creation, mentoring, open dialogue, exposure to diverse entrepreneurial role models, and signposting students to enterprise incubator opportunities within and beyond the University. We also seek to build trusting relationships with students and create inclusive learning environments where diverse perspectives are valued, and students feel comfortable sharing ideas, challenging assumptions and learning from mistakes. Reflective discussions can further encourage students to consider how entrepreneurship is shaped by different cultural contexts and social expectations, helping to challenge assumptions about what successful entrepreneurship looks like.

While Authentic Leadership Pedagogy is not a complete solution, it offers one approach for creating more inclusive entrepreneurial learning environments and broadening who sees entrepreneurship as a viable pathway. 

If we are serious about increasing women’s participation in entrepreneurship, we need to move beyond simply teaching entrepreneurial skills. We must also create learning environments that help students develop confidence, belonging and entrepreneurial identities while challenging the stereotypes and assumptions that continue to shape who sees entrepreneurship as a viable pathway. 

Perhaps the challenge for enterprise educators is not how we teach entrepreneurship, but who feels that entrepreneurship is for them. Until more women can genuinely see themselves as entrepreneurs, we risk losing entrepreneurial talent long before it reaches the market.

     

 

EEUK Director and Co-founder of Enterprise Educators UK’s Sustainable Society SIG, Catherine Brentnall from Manchester Metropolitan University, reflects on the recent ‘Co-operative Catalyst’ event, held at the University of Salford.

Last week, Enterprise Educators UK supported an event which brought together educators, co-operative practitioners and ecosystem partners for a ‘Co-operative Catalyst’ event to explore how enterprise education can support a thriving co-operative economy. The backdrop for the event is policy interest in expanding the co-operative economy and a recent government call for evidence on how this could be achieved. Co-operatives UK highlight cultural and educational barriers as a significant hindrance to co-operative growth, making the role of education and enterprise educators a vital one.

In science, a catalyst is a substance or agent that speeds up a reaction and makes a process happen faster. We could think of ‘co-operative catalysts’ as enterprise educators or partners who accelerate a shift towards co-operative thinking and business models, helping democratic enterprise ideas grow faster. The ‘co-operative catalyst’ day created a timely space for reflection and action on this. Throughout the day, contributors returned – explicitly and implicitly – to a question that continues to gather momentum in enterprise education: what forms of enterprise are students typically invited to imagine?

We began with a panel discussion on “Why co-ops? Why now?”, bringing together voices from across practice – from worker co-operatives to community-led housing and energy initiatives. These conversations grounded the day in lived experience, surfacing how co-operative models respond to contemporary challenges not simply through innovation, but through participation, power sharing and democratic structures that enable real, material improvements in people’s lives. As the day unfolded, we moved from rationale to practice. Mark Simmonds from Co-op Culture offered a rich account of what supporting co-operative start-up and development looks like on the ground, highlighting both the strengths of co-operative approaches and the gaps in mainstream enterprise support. This was complemented by a series of shorter sessions exploring how co-operative thinking can be translated into educational practice – from embedding ownership and regenerative thinking in the curriculum, to developing frameworks and tools that move beyond growth-led models and towards a co-operative and commons imagination. My colleague Dr Nor Yusup and I shared the potential of the ownership element of regenerative business theory to help elevate the question of ‘who owns it?’. You can read an accessible summary of this on page 17 of the spring edition of the Teaching Business and Economics journal. Across these exchanges, a consistent theme emerged: when we shift the questions we ask – towards ownership, participation, and who benefits – new possibilities for enterprise education begin to open up.

In the afternoon, Mark Simmonds took us through a sociocratic dialogue, where participants collectively explored what it means to become a ‘co-operative catalyst’ in their own context – surfacing both opportunities and barriers, and experimenting with more democratic approaches to structuring conversation and decision-making. What became visible through the day was that this question – ‘what do you need to be a co-operative catalyst?’ – is especially vital during these times of intensifying social and ecological pressures. Alongside the policy attention on expanding the cooperative economy, the idea of being a ‘cooperative catalyst’ feels less like a

niche interest and more like an existential one in the context of extreme wealth and social inequality, and the depletion of the communities and biosphere on which human society depends.

If co-operatives offer credible pathways towards more sustainable, democratic and place-responsive forms of economic activity, then the challenge for enterprise educators is not only to advocate for them, but to actively cultivate the conditions in which they can emerge and thrive. This calls for reflection – on how we teach, support and legitimise enterprise – but also for action: to experiment with new practices, redistribute voice and agency, and re-orient entrepreneurial aspiration towards collective wellbeing. In this sense, becoming a co-operative catalyst is not a fixed identity, but an ongoing commitment to reshaping the possibilities of enterprise in ways that are more aligned with the futures we urgently need.

On the day of the event, the event highlighted co-operatives not as a singular solution, but rather as a broader invitation: to expand the repertoire of organisational forms, ownership models and value logics that we make visible to students. As Suneel Kunamaneni reflects in his follow-up to the event, many of the challenges our students are drawn to – across food, housing, energy and community wellbeing – are not simply problems of innovation, but of coordination, governance and collective action. The conversations at the co-operative catalyst event resonated strongly with this perspective, suggesting that a fuller version of enterprise education may depend on how far we are willing to engage with these questions. You can read Suneel’s full reflection here: What forms of enterprise are students invited to imagine? And please join the Sustainable Society SIG to take part in this ongoing conversation and bring your reflections and actions to this agenda.

It is a common misconception that enterprise education is all Dragon’s Den-style pitches, pop-up shops, and hackathons. Great activities, but ones that colleagues may or may not deem relevant for their students. That can be a barrier to learner engagement, especially in FE when enterprise activities are predominantly booked for groups by lecturers or progress coaches. At Bridgend College, all enterprise activities are mapped to the Welsh Government’s ACRO Model of enterprise skills and the College’s ‘Core Skills for Success’, for which learners can be awarded digital badges. Although these are useful ways of demonstrating impact, broadening the scope of activities on offer to capture the imagination of both staff and learners has proved an even more effective way to increase awareness and widen participation. Essentially, realising that enterprise education could be murder was a game-changer. 

David Bolton highlighted leadership, decision-making and initiative as key enterprise skills in his Director’s Blog. Immerse students in an interactive, fictitious crime-solving activity that develops these, in addition to gamifying the Welsh Government’s ACRO skills and you’ve created a compelling pedagogical tool.

Designed to shine a light on core entrepreneurial behaviours, the ACRO model comprises four pillars – Attitude, Creativity, Relationships and Organisation. A ‘cold case’ simulation can be mapped onto this framework and is a particularly useful way of encouraging learners to reflect on their preferred methods of learning and team roles in a post-activity debrief. 

Attitude: Investigators rarely receive data in a clean, linear fashion. When assessing how successful the team was in solving the crime, learners must reflect on their own contribution to the overall result, analysing the levels of self-confidence, self- belief, motivation and determination they displayed and how these contributed to the outcome. This increases their self-knowledge and ensures that all the ACRO skills in the Attitude category are considered.

Creativity: Solving a cold case requires lateral thinking and it is by it’s very nature a problem to to solve. Teams must generate diverse hypotheses, look at seemingly mundane details or objects from unexpected angles, and connect disparate pieces of information to construct a viable theory. Finding a suspect with means, motive and opportunity requires both creative and critical thinking.  

Relationships: Working together against the clock with no clear instructions about where to start except to find all the evidence needed for a thorough investigation, is a great way to identify participants’ preferred team roles. How each individual reacts when they inevitably hit dead ends or get distracted by a red herring can also be a very helpful way to support learners to start articulating their transferable skills, something with which FE learners often struggle. 

Organisation: Crime scenes represent high-volume, chaotic information environments. Teams must systematically plan strategies, delegate tasks, prioritise critical evidence, and manage scarce time efficiently to deliver results. A lack of organisation is very likely to result in frustration and an unsolved crime so this ACRO area can prove crucial.

In addition to developing ACRO skills,muerder mystery activities also align with the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) Guidance for Higher Education Providers.It defines enterprise education as cultivating the “behaviours, attributes, and competencies” that enable students to transition smoothly from ideas to practical action. The QAA emphasizes decision-making supported by critical analysis and reflective judgement. By placing students in a challenge-led simulation, educators shift them from being passive recipients of risk theory to being active practitioners of real-world evaluation.

The Ultimate Post-Mortem

The true breakthrough in learning occurs during the structured, facilitator-led debrief—the educational post-mortem.This critical reflection of the simulated detective work allows learners to reflect on communication failures, leadership dynamics, and cognitive biases in a safe environment. Affording students the opportunity to analyse the skills they used in a fun and engaging, yet deceptively complex activity is all the proof I need that enterprise education can be murder.

References 

The ACRO model outlined in the Youth Entrepreneurship Strategy 

The QAA Guidance QAA Guidance 

• Communication
• Teamwork
• Time management
• Problem-solving
• Reliability
• Adaptability
• Professionalism
• Digital literacy

• Creativity and innovation
• Leadership
• Decision-making
• Risk assessment
• Financial awareness
• Strategic thinking
• Negotiation
• Initiative and self-motivation

• Employability skills help you get and keep a job.
• Enterprise skills help you create opportunities and drive innovation.

Creativity is not a luxury in today’s rapidly evolving world, it is essential to survive the working landscape. The ability to have a skillset that allows you to be able to pivot and be agile will be paramount, but how is that linked to creativity?

Creativity is a mindset; those who think like this are defined as lateral thinkers. You can learn this through entrepreneurship activities and processes; creatives and business owners process information in this way.

Lateral thinking—a term first coined by Edward de Bono in 1967- refers to a person’s capacity to address problems by imagining solutions that cannot be arrived at via deductive or logical means.

The ability to develop original answers to difficult questions. This is the essence of creativity, and all organisations benefit from it at times of change, when, by definition, traditional solutions are unlikely to get the desired result. Phil Lewis: Former Editor at Forbes.

Whether you’re launching a business, designing a new course, or reimagining how students engage with learning, creativity fuels innovation and opens doors for people from every background and discipline.

Creative minds tend to be energetic (but focused), playful (but disciplined), and realistic (but imaginative). Such traits seem like contradictions, but according to psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, it’s this exact contrast that helps inspire the most creative of minds.

Why Creative Paradoxes Matter: A Short Explanation of Csikszentmihalyi’s Theory.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, one of the most influential psychologists of the last century, argued that highly creative people don’t fit neatly into personality categories. Instead, they embody dynamic contradictions—pairs of traits that seem opposite but work together to fuel original thinking.

Csikszentmihalyi observed that creative individuals often display dualities such as:

energetic and focused. Playful and disciplined. Imaginative and realistic. Independent and collaborative. These aren’t inconsistencies—they’re flexible cognitive strategies.

Creative people shift between modes depending on what the work demands.

At the intersection of entrepreneurship and higher education lies a powerful opportunity: to cultivate environments where curiosity thrives, ideas collide, and students feel empowered to participate fully, regardless of their subject area or starting point or background.

By introducing creativity as a learnable process rather than a talent, this could help students across all subjects feel included and capable. By showing examples of analytical, visual, collaborative, and experimental thinking to validate different ways of approaching problems.

Present, authentic challenges that invite multiple solutions, encouraging students to draw from their unique backgrounds and skillsets. Encourage iteration over perfection, so they feel safe to experiment. Reflect on their thought processes, helping them to recognise their creative strengths and growth areas.

These insights have implications: Curriculum design can encourage both experimentation and rigour. Interdisciplinary learning naturally cultivates paradoxical thinking. Innovation ecosystems (labs, incubators, maker spaces) thrive when students can transition between divergent and convergent thinking.

Assessment models that reward curiosity, iteration, and reflection help students develop these dual capacities. Therefore, we can intentionally create environments where these paradoxes aren’t just accepted—they’re leveraged.

Creative paradoxes help people enter flow because they balance: keeping the mind engaged without tipping into boredom or anxiety. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, speaks about this particularly within his theory of flow.

By embracing creativity as a shared practice rather than a niche skill, it transforms who feels welcome to participate and makes it more inclusive for all to explore, collaborate and generate new ideas. Building a sense of belonging that has no parameters, but that encourages inclusive student participation and engagement.

Conclusion: Creativity as a Shared Space for Everyone

In a world defined by rapid change, creativity is no longer a specialist skill — it is a universal capacity that helps people adapt, innovate, and thrive.

What makes this mindset so powerful is that it is learnable. When we understand creativity not as a rare talent but as a flexible way of thinking, we begin to see ourselves as capable contributors, regardless of our background or subject area.

Education has an opportunity to nurture this mindset. By presenting authentic challenges, encouraging experimentation, and validating diverse cognitive styles — analytical, visual, collaborative, or exploratory — educators can help students recognise their own creative strengths.

Environments that balance freedom with structure, challenge with skill, and novelty with clarity mirror the very paradoxes that fuel creative flow.

These conditions make learning more inclusive, giving everyone permission to explore, iterate, and imagine new solutions.

Cultivating communities where creativity becomes a shared practice rather than an exclusive domain.

Csikszentmihalyi’s work reminds us that nurturing creativity means nurturing complexity.

References

The Use of Lateral Thinking (1967) Edward de Bono, London: Jonathan Cape.

Phil Lewis: Former Editor at Forbes – Published Mar 20, 2020

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention (1996)

Written by Jennie Baptiste, Industry & Engagement Manager at University of Westminster

Jennie has some of her creative photography work currently on show at The V&A East Museum’s inaugural exhibition, The Museum is Black: A British Story. Opens 18^th April- 3^rd January 2026.

Enterprise and entrepreneurship skills matter for every student and graduate, no matter where their career journey takes them. Having an enterprising mindset helps people spot opportunities, adapt quickly, and respond confidently to a fast‑changing labour market. It also plays an important role in wellbeing, resilience, and social mobility.

Across the sector, we’re seeing a welcome rise in careers services taking responsibility for enterprise and entrepreneurship education. With this shift comes an important question: How can we ensure careers professionals feel confident and supported to have enterprising conversations?

That’s where our work comes in……

Why we need entrepreneurial Careers Professionals

As graduates face increasingly complex career landscapes, agility and enterprising thinking are becoming essential. And these aren’t just skills for students, they’re equally important for the people who guide them.

Since 2018, I’ve been working with the Graduate Futures Institute (GFI) and Enterprise Educators UK (EEUK) to explore what entrepreneurial practice looks like within careers work. This has been through the work of an Enterprise & Entrepreneurship Task Group, with a group of exceptionally talented individuals from across the sector.  This has included primary research with careers professionals, which has been invaluable in shaping training and resources that genuinely meet their needs.

One interviewee summed it up perfectly:

“It’s important to become a more entrepreneurial careers adviser, because if you can practise the value of an entrepreneurial mindset in a profession you are familiar, qualified in and comfortable with, then you start to see how you can help others.”

That insight continues to guide our approach today.

Expanding our reach: partnering with the Careers Development Institute (CDI)

Until recently, much of our insight has come from Higher Education careers teams. To broaden the reach of our work, I reached out to the Careers Development Institute (CDI), a diverse community of career advisers, coaches, managers, researchers, in schools, colleges, universities and training providers across the UK and internationally.

I was especially keen to explore how we could collaborate to strengthen enterprise and entrepreneurship support across the wider careers development sector.  So, I’m delighted to share that earlier this month, Dr Matthew Draycott and I were invited by their Senior Professional Development & Standards Manager, Oliver Jenkins, to deliver our first joint workshop with CDI. The session was hands‑on, practical, and designed to help careers professionals feel confident, informed, and ready to bring enterprising thinking into their everyday conversations.

In the workshop, we explored how to:

• Understand the core skills behind enterprise and entrepreneurship
• Recognise where these skills show up in real‑world contexts
• Support clients to reflect on their strengths and opportunities
• Build a tailored Resource Matrix to connect learners to networks and next steps

Colleagues took part in discussions, used practical tools, and shared examples from their own work. Whether participants were new to enterprise or looking to refresh their approach, the session aimed to create a supportive space to learn and experiment.

I’m excited to see how this collaboration with CDI evolves over the year and will continue to share updates as and when things develop.

What else is coming up this year?

Outputs from our two Jisc‑funded research projects

I am excited to share our task group have secured two consecutive rounds of Jisc funding, supporting deeper exploration into enterprise, entrepreneurship, and careers work.

• 2025 Project: Student perspectives on enterprise, entrepreneurship and employability
  Read more here: Student perspectives on enterprise, entrepreneurship and employability | Luminate
• 2026 Project: Empowering Careers Professionals in Enterprise and Entrepreneurship
  This study focuses on professionals who self‑identify as having low confidence in enterprise and entrepreneurship. We are working with a panel to understand their needs and will create a suite of digital resources to support their development.

These insights will play a key role in shaping future training and support across the sector.

The launch of our EEUK and GFI Special Interest Group and Community of Practice

We’re also launching a new collaborative group between Enterprise Educators UK and the Graduate Futures Institute. This will be announced at:

• The Graduate Futures Institute Conference in July
• IEEC (Enterprise Educators UK Conference) in September

This group will offer opportunities for shared learning, cross‑membership events, and collaborative projects. If you’re interested in getting involved, I’d love to hear from you.

Looking ahead to the future…

Enterprise and entrepreneurship education continues to evolve and so does our work. I’m looking forward to deepening our partnerships, expanding our research, and supporting more careers professionals to feel confident in this space.

Thank you for reading….more updates coming soon!

EEUK Director’s Blog | February 2026

During my most recent GETM4 project research secondment, a brilliant professor made the statement, “context is everything”, which resonated with me well beyond the workshop discussion. The context of that conversation was meaningful in and of itself but has propelled my thinking across the many contexts we traverse in our careers and has helped me to organise some of the reflections I wish to share this month.

I’ll organise these as follows: first, I want to reflect on our temporal context in enterprise education in the UK, indicating some of the realities of our place in time. Secondly, I’ll turn to the global context of our work and reflect upon opportunities to engage with and learn from our global networks. Finally, I’ll highlight the potential for all of us to engage in and enhance our local contexts — including an update on my beloved northeast, our network and our plans to form a regional SIG (Special Interest Group) with EEUK.

1. Temporal Context: taking action in the eye of the storm

As we welcome the lunar new year and transition into the Year of the Fire Horse, we are told this year may bring illumination and movement — it is forward-looking, energetic, and instinct-driven towards new beginnings. I think there is plenty to take stock of — even hope for — here in enterprise education and in the wider FE and HE sector.  Taking action is something I think we enterprise educators are good at (probably one of our defining features) and considering the continuing ramifications of financial pressures in the sector right now, there is much we can channel from this forward-thinking energy.

Our temporal context is dynamic, complex and interwoven in shifting political and ecological – and now more than ever, emergent threats caused by mass digitisation in many parts of the world.  The polycrisis impacting us all has profound implications for enterprise education (see fellow Board member, Catherine Brentnall’s teams Special Issue Call for Papers around this!) and what we can do about this in our own practise is compelling.  Temporally our context is fraught with competing demands and polycrises and now, more than ever, I think, we need to collectivise and collaborate for survival.

Thanks to the GETM4 project we participate in, we are generating and collecting significant international data to help us develop these ideas further, and importantly, develop tools to benefit us all as educators and lifelong learners.

2. Our Global Context: Learning from ‘Not-So-Obvious’

My director’s blogs seem to follow a pattern of reflecting on recent research trips with the GETM4 project — not intentional but perhaps telling of how profoundly these experiences shape my thinking! I am acutely aware that participating in international secondments is an utter privilege, particularly amidst the current pressures facing our sector. The context and pause for reflection these trips provoke is worth sharing — not as a gratuitous “look what I did”, but as a reminder that experiencing radically different contexts can help us better appreciate the privileges we so easily overlook, and that doing things differently makes a difference.

The GETM4 programme is based on staff exchange research secondments between nine different participating countries. It is a great example of how emphasising the power of social and cultural capital to gain contextual insights and ideas can have profound impacts. Our most recent secondment took place in Nairobi, Kenya. If anyone reading this has had the privilege of visiting, you may agree that the breadth of entrepreneurialism there is unmistakeable and substantial — in every direction. The sounds and the sights and energy of Nairobi and above all, its people, are vibrant and intoxicatingly friendly and positive; and whilst the hard-work, drive and hustle is palpable, so too is respect and coopetition.  Innovation is everywhere and we were lucky to be shown so many examples external to- and within Kenyatta University, of people doing incredibly entrepreneurial things, with sustainability and learning from nature and the natural environment being core themes.

I met passionate educators who were drawing on the experiences and challenges of local communities and creating rich, visceral learning experiences with the students they engaged.  I talked with educators about some of the challenges they experience with attention, engagement and access, with developing curriculum with key stakeholders.  Despite such differences in context – and the context is everything – we share so many similar types of challenges with bureaucracy and competing priorities in key stakeholders and authorities.

One of the key GETM4 work packages centres around “Respectful Translation”. Initially premised on the necessity to respectfully translate knowledge between the global north and south, this concept has since been updated to represent the valuing of insights from diverse contexts — particularly “not-so-obvious areas”. The principle is not only about ensuring proper credit and utilisation for all stakeholders involved in developing such insights; it is also a broader call to challenge stereotypes and to practise contextual understanding.

I think the key to getting better at practising contextual understanding is for us to get better at sharing and collaborating. We can strengthen awareness and knowledge from our global partnerships and find ways to enhance our ways of working and understanding the complexities of our worlds.

So, what about you, our EEUK network? We know there are various institutions doing great things in Europe and around the world – participating in various international consortium projects – we would love to hear from you! Too often, we are realising, there are great outputs/outcomes being produced in these projects and not enough noise and/or knowledge about them.

We are keen to not just praise and extend the work you’re already doing – we can also look at ways of working together in discrete projects as partners.  For instance, EEUK can participate in relevant consortiums for (UK/European) funded projects or help you to maximise the impact of your existing work of this nature. If you’re in interested in exploring this more, please contact: Steve@enterprise.ac.uk

I am also happy to share that I met up with the President of Enterprise Educators East Africa during this trip, and I hope to report back soon on how we might be able to work together and learn from each other soon.

 

3. Local Context: Building Communities – COPs and SIGs

In the northeast of England, we are quite lucky to have a strong and active regional network. Perhaps like some of you in the wider UK network, many of us have worked together at some point given limited regional mobility (often shaped by family ties and commitments) and have formed many point of connection and long-lasting friendships along the way. We have been meeting almost quarterly for a few years now, developing our own Community of Practice — inspired by a great enterprise exchange event at UCL several years ago — and taking turns to host at different universities across the network (Sunderland, Newcastle, Durham, and Northumbria so far, with potentially more to come!). So, the network grows, with newcomers – including academics and practitioners as well as what we at EEUK refer to as ‘Influencers’ but who occupy various types of (senior) management roles.  We may share some regional similarities, but we have different institutional drivers and priorities, different institutional ambitions and staff pressures, not to mention different responses to financial pressures on the sector.  In short, we always have much to learn from each other’s context and meeting regularly helps us to discuss and tackle some of the issues affecting us all.

Like many of you in the UK network, we are now working within a combined authority, and our new regional SIG will enable us to collectivise around specific regional issues and policy agendas. We are excited about what this might achieve, and warmly invite anyone interested in regional collaboration and forming your own SIG to get in touch with EEUK.

Full disclosure, I spent an uncomfortable amount of time trying to work with AI Tools to produce a UK Regional map, to include in this blog post.   I did not have success in developing anything that resembled accuracy unfortunately (we even lost the northwest to Ireland at once point!) so, for now, you just have a list to observe.   As we know, there are 4 constituent nations that make up our beloved United Kingdom and ONS tends to break down England into 9 distinct regions including:

1. Northeast

2. Northwest

3. Yorkshire and the Humber

4. East Midlands,

5. West midlands

6. East of England

7. Southeast

8. Southwest

9. Greater London

 

Groups within Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland may also find value in differentiating regions (for example, west and east Scotland/north and south Wales) – there is nothing set in stone here – we are interested to understand what sort of ‘special interests’ each of our communities are concerned with and provoking space to tackle these and ride the waves of the storms ahead together.

Want to start a Regional SIG? Get in touch.

Closing Thoughts: Context is everything.

Context is a slippery notion that is often best articulated and understood through practice (Bate, 2014). As Goulder (1955) – who was apparently the first to coin the phrase ‘context is everything’ notes, ‘human action can be rendered meaningful only by relating it to the contexts in which it takes place’. However, too often we assume similarities and sameness from sharing the same ‘context’ — be that disciplinary, institutional, local, or regional.  The sheer complexity of contexts in this digital age demands that we remain thoughtful and recursive in how we read and respond to our environments.

Context helps us to understand not only where we are, but where we might be going. Whether we are navigating the temporal pressures of a sector in flux, drawing inspiration from entrepreneurial ecosystems far from home, or investing in the communities right on our doorstep, context shapes all of it. I hope these reflections offer something useful — whether as a prompt for your own thinking, a nudge to connect regionally, or simply a reminder that the spaces we occupy, however different, hold rich possibility.

Take action.

References

Bate, P. et al. (2014) Perspectives on context: a selection of essays considering the role of context in successful quality improvement. London: The Health Foundation.

Gouldner, A. (1955) Wildcat Strike: A Study in Worker–Management Relationships. London: Routledge.

Valencia, A., & Mountford-Brown, V. (2025) Rethinking cyber- and cyborg-knowledge for entrepreneurial futures and entrepreneurship education. Paper presented at the 48th Annual International Conference of the Institute for Small Business & Entrepreneurship (ISBE 2025), University of Glasgow & University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, United Kingdom

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Global Entrepreneurial Talent Management 4 (GETM4) is an international, interdisciplinary research and innovation staff exchange project funded by Horizon Europe’s Marie-Sklodowska-Actions, UKRI, the Polish Science and Higher Education Ministry and the Korean National Research Foundation.

Higher education is facing one of the most complex and demanding periods in its history. Long viewed as a relatively stable pillar of society, universities are now operating in an environment shaped by geopolitical uncertainty, rapid technological change, shifting labour markets, and growing pressure to demonstrate relevance and impact. These challenges are not abstract; they shape funding models, student mobility, curriculum design, and the very purpose of higher education itself.

For those of us working in enterprise and entrepreneurship education, this moment presents both a challenge and an opportunity. If we genuinely believe in creativity, adaptability, and entrepreneurial problem-solving, then now is the time to practice what we preach. The way we teach, design learning experiences, and engage with students must reflect the realities of the world they are entering.

The global context in which higher education operates has fundamentally changed. Increasing geopolitical tensions, regional conflicts, trade fragmentation, and shifts towards protectionism have disrupted long-established patterns of international collaboration. Student mobility, once a cornerstone of global higher education, is increasingly affected by visa policies, border controls, economic instability, and concerns about safety and inclusion.

At the same time, universities are being drawn into wider political debates around academic freedom, research security, and national competitiveness. Knowledge is no longer seen as neutral; it is strategic. Governments want universities to contribute directly to economic resilience, innovation capacity, and workforce development, often while simultaneously reducing public funding and increasing regulatory oversight.

This creates a difficult balancing act. Higher education institutions are expected to be global in outlook but local in impact, collaborative yet competitive, and socially responsible while remaining financially sustainable. These tensions shape every aspect of university life, from research partnerships to course portfolios.

The traditional higher education model is under strain. Rising costs, questions about the value of degrees, and the growth of alternative education providers have forced universities to justify what makes them distinctive. Students are increasingly discerning consumers, seeking clear pathways to employment, purpose, and impact rather than abstract promises of future opportunity.

At the same time, the pace of change in the world of work is accelerating. Automation, artificial intelligence, and green transitions are reshaping industries faster than curricula can traditionally respond. Employers consistently emphasise the need for graduates who can navigate uncertainty, work across cultures, think creatively, and solve complex, real-world problems.

These are not new messages, but the urgency has increased. Higher education can no longer rely on incremental change or cosmetic innovation. The challenge is systemic and demands a fundamental rethink of how learning is designed and delivered.

Enterprise and entrepreneurship education sits at the heart of this challenge. Our field is often positioned as the bridge between education and the real world, between theory and practice. We talk about resilience, opportunity recognition, experimentation, and value creation in uncertain environments. In a volatile geopolitical context, these capabilities are not optional extras; they are essential graduate attributes.

However, there is a risk of contradiction. Too often, enterprise education is delivered within rigid institutional structures that mirror the very systems we encourage students to question. Assessment regimes, timetabling constraints, risk-averse cultures, and siloed disciplines can limit our ability to model entrepreneurial thinking in practice.

If we are not careful, we end up teaching entrepreneurship as content rather than as a way of thinking and acting. In a world defined by ambiguity and rapid change, that is no longer sufficient.

To respond effectively, enterprise educators must embody the mindset we seek to develop in our students. This means being willing to challenge assumptions about teaching, learning, and institutional norms. It means seeing constraints not only as barriers but as design challenges.

Practising what we preach starts with curriculum design. Are our learning experiences flexible enough to respond to global events as they unfold? Do they encourage students to engage with real geopolitical, social, and economic challenges rather than simulated or overly simplified problems? Are students given space to experiment, fail, reflect, and adapt?

It also requires us to rethink our role as educators. In complex and uncertain contexts, the educator is less a transmitter of knowledge and more a facilitator, connector, and co-learner. This shift can feel uncomfortable, particularly in institutions that value control and predictability, but it is essential if learning is to remain relevant.

One of the most powerful lessons from entrepreneurship is that innovation often emerges under constraint. Limited resources, regulatory complexity, and uncertainty are not reasons to retreat; they are catalysts for creative problem-solving. Higher education today is full of such constraints, from funding pressures to policy shifts and geopolitical disruptions.

Enterprise educators are uniquely positioned to respond creatively. This might involve developing interdisciplinary projects that bring together students from different cultural and academic backgrounds to work on global challenges. It could mean partnering with external organisations, communities, and entrepreneurs to create authentic learning experiences that transcend national borders.

Digital and hybrid learning models also offer opportunities to reimagine internationalisation in a more inclusive and sustainable way. Rather than relying solely on physical mobility, we can design global classrooms where students collaborate across countries and time zones, learning to navigate cultural difference and geopolitical complexity in practice.

Ultimately, the challenges facing higher education are not just pedagogical; they are cultural and strategic. Enterprise educators must step into leadership roles, advocating for experimentation, flexibility, and learner-centred design within their institutions. This requires confidence, evidence, and a willingness to engage with uncertainty rather than shy away from it.

In a changing geopolitical world, higher education has a critical role to play in shaping informed, ethical, and adaptable citizens. Enterprise education, when done well, equips learners not just to survive change but to shape it. But this promise will only be realised if we are prepared to live our values as educators.

The question, then, is not whether higher education needs to change. It already is. The real question is whether we, as enterprise educators, are willing to be entrepreneurial ourselves – to experiment boldly, respond creatively, and lead by example in the face of uncertainty. If we are, we can help ensure that higher education remains not only relevant, but transformative, in a rapidly changing world.

As we approach the end of another energetic, imaginative and occasionally chaotic year in enterprise and entrepreneurship education, Christmas finally gives us permission to pause, breathe, and, just for a moment, stop working! The festive season reminds us of the importance of connection, and connection is something enterprise educators excel at… usually without needing mince pies as an incentive (though they certainly help).

Throughout the year, colleagues across the UK have been busy crafting innovative learning experiences, hosting hackathons fuelled by caffeine and hope, and guiding students through the highs and lows of entrepreneurial discovery. From pitch events that finish with applause to workshops that finish with students asking, “Do we really need a business model?”, enterprise educators continue to bring creativity and opportunity to life. Christmas offers us a well-earned moment to acknowledge this brilliance.

This time of year is also about generosity, something the EEUK community masters better than Father Christmas himself. Our networks flourish because educators openly share tools, ideas and hard-won lessons. Whether you’re one of the 295 that attended one of our 8 Enterprise Exchange events, or one of the 45 that presented at IEEC 2025, your generosity of time and spirit is what strengthens our community. No sleigh required, just a willingness to help.

Of course, Christmas is not only for reflection; it’s also a springboard into the new year. And if there’s one thing enterprise and entrepreneurship educators understand, it’s opportunity. Whether navigating the rise of AI, evolving student expectations, or policy changes that appear overnight (and sometimes feel like they were written by elves), we continue to adapt with humour, resilience, and a healthy amount of creativity.

As 2026 approaches, at EEUK we hope your festive break brings rest, joy, and perhaps only light email checking. Thank you for the passion, kindness, and energy you contribute to EEUK and to the students and communities you inspire.  From all of us at EEUK, we wish you a joyful, sparkling Christmas and an enterprising start to the new year, may it be full of creativity, collaboration, and only the good kind of surprises.

Dr Emily Beaumont
Associate Professor of Enterprise and Entrepreneurship, University of Gloucestershire
EEUK Director