Enhancing engineering education by means of the promotion of entrepreneurial mindsets and attitudes for societal challenges

The development of skills and awareness of entrepreneurship and innovation topics in engineering curricula has been growing by diverse measures, such as by means of team-working sessions towards real-world problems, promotion of problem-solving assignments, and external initiatives to exploit ideas and to promote the development of new products or services. This paper addresses an approach taken as a complementary, extracurricular, education program together with a Product Development Project course, activities promoted by a joint initiative of several European universities in the form of the “Start for Future” (SFF) program. This initiative allowed students to explore the innovation and entrepreneurship dimensions of their ongoing projects with tandem teams from other institutions and external experts. The potential impact of this integrated, international, program is reviewed, considering both the work developed by students as well as analyzing the competences acquired during the extra-curricular activities. These initiatives proved to attain a positive effect on students and the learning process, stimulating entrepreneurial mindsets and attitudes, as well as complementing the training of the student on a number of transferable competences that are crucial for future engineers.