Expanding entrepreneurship education ecosystems

Purpose The creation of start-ups using knowledge provided by universities has been identified as an important source of knowledge spillover and regional economic development. Entrepreneurship ecosystems in education have become the most important and efficient mechanism of business community engagement and knowledge transfer within university-industry-government framework creating value to society and regional economy. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach This study undertakes in-depth synthesis of eclectic literature on entrepreneurship ecosystems and knowledge spillover of entrepreneurship, examining the critical success factors and enablers of entrepreneurship ecosystems in education. Findings This study proposes entrepreneurship education ecosystems as an alternative unit of analysis when it comes to considering the role of university-industry-government collaboration in knowledge commercialization. The authors recommend key entrepreneurship education ecosystem enablers for knowledge commercialization and engagement with entrepreneurial communities. Originality/value The authors propose a framework for the creation of an entrepreneurship education ecosystem as a unit of analysis when considering the role of university-industry-government collaboration. It requires different approaches to teaching, research and business outreach, some of which have not yet been discovered or yet need to be created.