This session will be presented by Dave Jarman, the Undergraduate Programme Director at the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Bristol and is based on his own experiences of teaching venture-creation to undergraduates.

Dave asks if student venture-creation is a means to combat the sense of polycrisis. Is it helpful to position entrepreneurship as a means to respond to the overwhelming sense of a bleak future? Dave shares his experiences of experimenting with the framing of his venture-creation units, using both crisis and effectuation as context and toolkit for entrepreneurial learning. In the first half of the session, Dave will share his experiences with different framings and positionings of crisis and the outcomes he witnessed. In the second half, he’ll facilitate further examples from the room and explore the risks and opportunities of acknowledging the polycrisis in our classrooms.

Dave is an Associate Professor in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Bristol’s multi-award-winning Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (www.bristol.ac.uk/innovation). Dave has previously been Head of Employability and Enterprise at Bath Spa University and Head of Student Enterprise at the University of Bristol. He’s moonlighted as an innovation coach, consultant, charity trustee, independent town councillor, and served as Chair of Enterprise Educators UK.

Dave’s interests lie in early-stage entrepreneurship, creative habits, and ‘threshold concepts’ in entrepreneurial thinking. Dave co-developed the Threshold Concepts in Entrepreneurship Education Toolkit with Dr Lucy Hatt.