Impact of Interdisciplinary Teaching Practices in an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

This conceptual paper explores how changing educational practices towards interdisciplinary collaboration influences innovation and entrepreneurship processes for both students and educators when involved in a real-life project in cooperation with an external organisation. Recent research in entrepreneurship education suggests that the educational sector plays an important role as an actor in an entrepreneurship ecosystem. The ecosystem's five elements are students, educators, educational institution, community and external organisations (often a company). Furthermore, the entrepreneurship education ecosystem is characterised by the individual participants mutually influencing each other through dialogic relationships. Working with innovation and entrepreneurship processes in education can pose a challenge for educators, who are used to thinking within the traditional learning environment with educators and students as the main participants. There can be a discrepancy between the perception of an innovation and entrepreneurship project within the external organisation and within the educational institution. In the latter, the project will be viewed through the point of view of the different disciplines, in which any education is divided, whereas the project, in the former, will be seen more as a whole. Often projects are part of the teaching in a single discipline only, and the students will have other disciplines at the same time - which are then seen as unrelated. Working with the project in all disciplines will allow students and educators to view the project as a whole, thus mirroring the more holistic view of the external organisation. Our paper will present a didactic approach as well a practical tool for how to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration as a method to support the educational institution in becoming an important and equal actor in the ecosystem as well as enhancing the transversal skills of the students. This would be of interest to educators who are in the process of planning and executing innovation and entrepreneurship projects involving several educational disciplines.