Food innovation and entrepreneurship in higher education: a case study

Abstract

Food innovation and entrepreneurship are important topics in graduate food studies. Students should be challenged to promote an innovative attitude towards their future career in the food industry sector, as professionals working in a small and medium-sized enterprise, or in a large multinational company, or even as entrepreneurs with their own working projects. The present case study shows a curricular unit of a master course that intends to integrate the knowledge on new and sustainable technologies and products, based on seminars of experts on hot topics, on visits to food industry enterprises and market expositions and on the development of a state-of-the-art report about an emergent or novel food technology or product with oral presentation. Hot topic seminars included edible coatings, bioprocessing, allying tradition and innovation in food products, new convenience foods, challenging tests, and new clean and sustainable processes. Entrepreneur alumni lectures were also promoted allowing exchange of experiences. Visits included a high pressure technology unit of a food industry, an innovation and development department of a food industry, an entrepreneurship centre and a food exhibition. A satisfaction survey was made, through the response of a questionnaire by the students, proving the effectiveness and success of this unit course framework. A SWOT analysis was carried out to gain a better understanding of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats involved in the curricular unit objectives.

Bioeconomy credentials and intellectual capital: a comparative modelling approach for the E.U.-13 and E.U.-15

“…That means tertiary education (the most unfavourable variable upon bioeconomy) needs to be reconsidered in line with the national and bioeconomy E.U. strategies, with specific and real interventions in competencies, skills formation and labour market integration within the bioeconomy sectors, as Fonseca et al (2015), Saguy (2011), and Urmetzer and Pyka (2017) also highlighted as major changes to be made for the development of a sustainable bioeconomy.…”

“…The transition from manufacturing to knowledge-based technology innovation implies new skills acquired by the graduates of higher education, to be applied in the areas sustained by bioeconomy: agriculture, health and industry (with a focus on the chemical industry, energy, forestry, pharmaceutical, etc.) (European Commission, 2012;Fonseca et al, 2015;Urmetzer & Pyka, 2017). Only through partnerships developed among authorities, the business environment and universities, through the joint development of knowledge and skills, and by cross-border partnerships and exchanges between universities, can the medium-and long-term strategies be supported and achieved based on graduates in R&D and innovation activities, in key areas of bioeconomy (Pilvere, Nipers, & Mickiewicz, 2016).…”

Engineering education development – a business modelling approach

“…For promoting innovation and action driven development rather than a bureaucratic and metric based improvement process, a business modelling approach for education development is applied in this paper. Tools and models from the business area have previously been applied for educational development, such as stakeholder analysis (Simms and Chapleo, 2010; Kettunen, 2015), SWOT analysis (Hargis et al , 2014; Fonseca et al , 2015), PRIMO-F and PEST (Bishops and Mabry, 2016) or the business model canvas (Rytkönen, 2015; Gaus et al , 2016; De Langen, 2018). However, a holistic business modelling approach for educational development has not yet been applied.…”