Approaches to Entrepreneurship and Leadership Development at an Engineering University

摘要

American universities run efficient projects on development of innovative entrepreneurship for engineering programs. A Russian technological university has adopted a program on commercializing the innovations for engineering PhD students. The paper analyzes the changes in entrepreneurial motivation of PhD students that undergo this course. The growth of competition in the world markets and intensification of economic activities create entrepreneurial risks for market agents. Despite considerable investments into the innovative infrastructure, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rates that arise from innovative products are below desirable expectations. Today, the economically active part of the Russian population prefers to derive a steady income as contract employees without any entrepreneurial risks. Investments into construction of industrial parks and other innovative infrastructure are justified mostly if the market residents with competitive products are available. However, low innovative activity, especially in the regions, sets certain doubts on the expectations that these infrastructural objects will be filled with small innovative businesses. Under these circumstances, educational institutions become more important as they can provide regional production clusters, industrial and technical parks with the specialists who possess innovative skills and an economically-oriented mindset. Foreign experience of regional development reveals that many large educational institutions perform the function of innovative cluster centers and form groups of innovative companies involved into both innovative production and social entrepreneurship.