Entrepreneurship in Human Movement Sciences

Course Objective

Entrepreneurship, here defined as ‘the creation, discovery and exploitation of value-adding opportunities’, is an increasingly important subject for students and professionals, also in the discipline of human movement sciences. In recent years, academic entrepreneurship education has shifted from the exclusive domains of business administration and economics to many other domains as well. In the academic year 2010/2011, this course Entrepreneurship in Human Movement Sciences was taught for the first time. Since then, the course has become a popular elective for students in human movement sciences.

After the successful completion of this course, the student will:

1. Be more familiar with an innovation outlook on entrepreneurship in human movement sciences.
2. Be more aware that value-adding opportunities not only contain financial aspects but also social and ecological aspects (sustainable entrepreneurship).
3. Have developed further insight into, and actual developed, one’s own entrepreneurial competences.
4. Have learned more about the processes involved in the recognition and exploitation of opportunities, about creating societal value and about the nature and role of networks.
5. Have gained an increasing ability to write a feasibility plan on how to bring an innovation to the market.
6. Have gained more knowledge of different entrepreneurial processes and the importance of valorization of scientific findings and business ideas for a knowledge-based economy.

Course Content

In this course, students will learn the ropes of this emerging field via three educational pillars:

1. The students will learn modern theories of entrepreneurship, with focus on subjects like innovation, entrepreneurial ecosystems, sustainable entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial finance, the life cycle of the firm, effectuation, valorization of knowledge, and typology of entrepreneurs.
2. The students will familiarize with a set of entrepreneurial soft skills, which they will put into practice when they will be asked to approach different stakeholders to further their projects to gain commitments or to obtain important information. For this purpose, the students will receive training in generating initial ideas for opportunities, and networking and network utilization.
3. The students will be introduced to business planning. For this purpose, the students, supported by the tutorials and lectures, will use the Business Model Canvas for Start-ups and Scale-ups to make a slide deck concerning an innovative idea from their own discipline that they deem interesting for entrance into the market.

Scientific research in entrepreneurship is not an explicit part of this course, although it is the fourth pillar of entrepreneurship education. Scientific research will be dealt with directly and indirectly within all three pillars of this course.

Additional Information Teaching Methods

Lectures, tutorials, excursion, cases and small assignments.

Method of Assessment

This course loads 6 ECs. The final grade for this course is based on the Business Model Canvas for Start-ups and Scale-ups assignment (50%) and the exam (50%). Both forms of examination should be sufficient, with grades of at least 5.5. The exam is an individual assignment whereas the Business Model Canvas for Start-ups and Scale-ups assignment is a team assignment. Next to these two obligatory aspects of the course, a number of mandatory assignments have to be delivered.

Literature

A series of articles and one book, that will be presented in the course manual.