The paper reviews the origins of entrepreneurship education in the UK from the time when it was considered almost a deviant form of academic behaviour through to the present day. At different times the main drivers for this work have been outreach to entrepreneurs and ‘real’ small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), research, and the growth of courses aimed at traditional degree students. Now, at least 45% of UK higher education institutions have one or more courses within the curriculum which address business start-up issues. Such activity looks set to increase, even without the investment of some £25 million of pump-priming funds from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). That money will shortly become available to universities with leading-edge science and technology to establish ‘Centres of Excellence’ in support of the creation of high-tech firms by their students and staff. Much of the paper draws upon the results of work supported by the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) to assess and disseminate best practice in this field and to create new resources for entrepreneurship education. Signposts to these resources and others are given.

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This research paper explores the generic barriers which govern supply chain integration. Four automotive cases illustrate the motivations and barriers that emerged during the implementation phase of collaborative Information Communication Technology (ICT) ventures. The results indicate the reasons for the failure of ICT as the solution to collaborative supply chain integration. We show that ICT, in relation to Supply Chain Collaboration (SCC), is still at an embryonic stage of development. Recent examples of e-business initiatives are used to further develop a framework of barriers for supply chain integration and collaboration based in the automotive sector. The barriers to successful integration and collaboration that are identified in this research include system standards, legacy systems and interoperability, cost-benefit sharing and interorganisational trust. The paper concludes by suggesting that for ICT ventures to be successful in achieving requirements, interfirm relationships must be a first consideration, certainly before implementing technology

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