Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem: The perspective of Jean-Pierre Segers

Jean-Pierre Segers is the dean of the Business School at PXL University College in Hasselt, Belgium and chairman of PXL-UHasselt StudentStartUP.

His main research interests are small businesses and entrepreneurship, new technology based firms, new biotechnology firms, open innovation, national and regional systems of innovation, and public-private partnerships. This blog publication shares insights of his yet unpublished paper Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem: A networked incubator-strategic partnership approach within a regional context, presented at multiple occasions.

Brief Overview
In the last decades, the concepts of the entrepreneurial university and entrepreneurial ecosystems have become important for both academic research as for regional policy objectives. This leads to a new important role for action-based entrepreneurship education.

The entrepreneurial spirit of higher educational institutions within regional triple helix frameworks contributes to future employment and keeping up with new technological developments and trends. Strategic policies towards entrepreneurial ecosystem building support the increasing entrepreneurial activity in the region.

This paper looks at entrepreneurial ecosystem building and entrepreneurship education in the Limburg Region (Belgium). Connecting all the emerging entrepreneurial subsystems and nurturing a more entrepreneurial mindset within the Limburg Region were considered critical for the overall success.

Key Messages
The strategic horizon of the Limburg Region is in migrating into an innovation driven economy with a greater potential for innovative entrepreneurial activity.

In accordance with the low start-up ratio for Belgium as a whole, this calls for changing the regional mindset of risk adversity and the nurture of a more entrepreneurial mindset.

Supplying the start-up community and student/academic entrepreneurs with networks, finance, expert advice, coaching and role models is key in building new start-ups and scale ups in the lead industries of the future.

The entrepreneurial spirit of higher educational institutions within regional triple helix frameworks contributes to future employment and keeping up with new technological developments and trends. Strategic policies towards entrepreneurial ecosystem building support the increasing entrepreneurial activity in the region.

Current Trends and Challenges
The main trend is the one towards public-private partnerships with regard to the Limburg start-up scene. The latter is evolving rapidly with many private and public players and organizations coming on the scene. This is definitely a triple or even a quadruple helix approach, where government, business, HEIs and the community are working towards a common goal of new and sustainable start-ups in the Limburg Region.

It is of the utmost importance to streamline the abundance of start-up initiatives so that the ultimate client – i.e. the start-up – knows what path to take given the questions he or she is struggling with.

Would you like to contact Jean-Pierre Segers to learn more? Please find his information here.