Blending entrepreneurship and sustainability education through post-oil economy lenses

This paper contributes to the curricular design of courses combining entrepreneurship and sustainability objectives by developing a competence framework which was tested during a summer school. The guiding research question was: How can entrepreneurship training with focus on opportunity recognition and creativity relate to macro-economic transformation concepts such as post-oil economies? Based on in-depth interviews, we assess the course effect on the participant in regards to different learning outcomes. The participant assessment addressed both “what” was aimed with the course, and the “how” the course learning outcomes were achieved. The findings indicate that blending entrepreneurship and sustainability in courses at graduate level requires teaching-learning methods which are active, project-based and real-world oriented. The combination of themes shall consider that complex umbrella topics as “post-oil” provide a background to consider the course's problem analysis and discussions. This paper provides a better understanding of how sustainability can be combined with entrepreneurship education, by developing a conceptual framework of how to make sustainability education more entrepreneurial oriented in higher education.