Lightning Bites: How can our students develop an entrepreneurial mindshift?

In early 2023, University College Cork (UCC) recognised an opportunity to ‘open’ up entrepreneurship education – regardless of discipline, year of study, postgrad or undergrad – with the goal of offering an inclusive entrepreneurship education initiative for all students.

In this talk Dr Gillian Barrett shares insights and learnings from UCC’s University Wide (UW) entrepreneurship module entitled “Developing an entrepreneurial mindshift”, an experiential 5 credit (ECTS) module. Dr Gillian Barrett shares how UCC implemented (using exercises and activities) this simple, scalable and novel initiative to help all students across all programmes to build entrepreneurial self-efficacy, confidence, resilience, and transversal skills (creativity, complex problem solving, critical thinking). Students are supported and encouraged to discover their inner entrepreneur, to develop much needed entrepreneurial skills and encouraged to change the world by solving global problems, improving society, making a positive impact, and contributing to their (future) workplace. Upon completion, students are introduced to other entrepreneurial pathways and motivated to implement their entrepreneurial goals.

The talk is available to playback in the Gallery below.

About the Speaker: Dr Gillian Barrett is a lecturer in the Department of Management and Marketing, Cork University Business School (CUBS), University College Cork (UCC). Gillian is Programme Co-Director for the Bachelor of Commerce Undergraduate Degree at CUBS and lectures final year CUBS students in project management and entrepreneurship. In 2019, Gillian was awarded the UCC President’s Team Award in for her excellence in teaching and in 2024, was awarded the College of Business and Law award for Cross Campus Engagement. Gillian supports several entrepreneurship education initiatives throughout the university. She has a PhD, MSc (Innovation, Commercialisation and Entrepreneurship), BA and Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, all from University College Cork. Gillian’s research interests lie at the intersection of innovation management, open innovation, and entrepreneurship. She has published in leading innovation journals. Prior to academia, Gillian worked for fifteen years in industry in a variety of senior project management and leadership roles primarily managing innovation and technology projects.