Pathways to transformation:

enterprise and sustainability tools for

future thinking

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09 May 2014

Chris Willmore, Academic Director of Undergraduate Studies

Esd-team@bristol.ac.uk, Google: ESD at Bristol

Results of HEA-funded workshop

20 Universities, 1 day

• Enterprise Education

• Sustainability Education

• Opportunities for

collaboration

• Student Voices

Themes:

1) Flexible Pedagogies

2) Skills & Attributes

3) Language

4) Joint Institutional

Approaches: partnership

building

5) Distinctions

6) Ethics

All presentations slides, videos of presentations, event report and other resources:

google ESD+at+Bristol or tinyurl.com/SUSTPRISE

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09 May 2014

Enterprise Education

Caricatures

• QAA draft guidance on ESD 2014

• QAA guidance on enterprise and entrepreneurship education 2012

• Domains of knowledge or skills ?

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09 May 2014Parallels?

• Enterprise is defined as ‘the application of creative ideas and

innovations to practical situations.’

• ‘It combines creativity, ideas development and problem solving

with expression, communication and practical action. This

definition is distinct from the generic use of the word in reference

to a project or business venture.’

• Enterprise Education ‘aims to produce graduates with the

mindset and skills to come up with original ideas in response to

identified needs and shortfalls, and the ability to act on them.’

QAA guide to enterprise and entrepreneurship 2012

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09 May 2014Enterprise Education

• Enterprise education is defined as the process of equipping students (or graduates) with an enhanced

• … capacity to generate ideas and the skills to makethem happen….

• Entrepreneurship education equips students with the additional knowledge, attributes and capabilitiesrequired to

• … apply these abilities in the context of setting up a new venture or business…

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09 May 2014

Language

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09 May 2014

Enterprise

knowledge

+

language

Sustainability

knowledge

+

language

Skills

+

New pedagogies

+

Language translation

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09 May 2014

• Learner empowerment students as co creators of learning

• Future-facing education refocussinglearning towards future thinking

• Decolonising education

• Transformative capabilities moving beyond knowledge an understanding towards agency and competence, using engaged, whole person pedagogies

• Crossing boundaries integrative and systemic approach, interdisciplinary and collaborative learning

• Social learning – harnessing the emancipatory power of spaces outside the formal curriculum

Pedagogies

• Future thinking

• Adaptive capacity

• evidence based thinking

• Ability to handle risk, uncertainty and move beyond predictable

• Holistic /integrative thinking

• Personal ethical code

• Vision, motivation and resourcefulness

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09 May 2014Attributes for the future

Enterprise or Sustainability Education?

• Adaptive capacity

• Taking the initiative

• Intuitive decision-making

• Making things happen

• Networking

• Innovating

• Future thinking

• Interdisciplinary skills

• Personal ethical code

• Identifying opportunities

• Creative problem-solving

• Strategic thinking

• Personal effectiveness

• Holistic thinking

• Resource management

• Living with uncertainty

• Handling risk

• Resilient

• Optimistic

• Tenacious

• Committed

• Passionate

• Patient

• Emotionally intelligent

• Assertive

• Persuasive

• Empathetic

• Authentic

• Ethical

• Self-Aware

• Competent

• Curious

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09 May 2014Change Agent Skills

ACPA , Towards a Sustainable Future ( 2008)

trying to develop a new kind of student

Bristol Student Green Fund

• Future narratives

• Future thinking

• Interdisciplinary engagement

• Critical thinking

• Social / collaborative thinkers

• Making a difference

• Creative solutions

• Innovation

• empowerment, efficacy, self belief

• experiential learning

• Partnership

• Interdisciplinarity

• Empathy

• Self efficacy

• Adaptive capacity

evidence based thinking

Ability to handle risk, uncertainty and

move beyond predictable

• Holistic /integrative thinking

• Personal ethical code

• Vision, motivation and resourcefulness

Skills common ground

Enablers not prescribers: personal

reconciliations

Encouraging existing operations to ‘ go green’

Innovation to meet green consumer demands

Social entrepreneurs

Sustainability entrepreneurs/eco-preneurs

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09 May 2014

Who are sustainability entrepreneurs?

Evolutionary models

Parrish (2008)

• Rejection of opportunistic business v altruistic charity models

• Model of co production of multiple benefits

• Financial, social, economic and environmental benefits not juxtaposed: win win is possible

• Holistic thinking as key skill

• Integrative thinking - include rather than excluding dataParrish (2008)

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09 May 2014Characteristics of

sustainability entrepreneurs/

ecopreneurs

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09 May 2014Languages

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09 May 2014

Language

Enterprise and sustainability education

use different language:

• Loaded words

• Different vocabularies

• Shared vocabularies

• Language as barrier AND opportunity

Both are THEMATIC – trying to break

through disciplinary silo barriers.

The language means they can get

through different doors….

SustainabilityCorporate

Social Responsibility

EthicsEnterprise or Entrepreneur

Different doors in

Different journeys

Different outcomes

Map your own journey}

Joint Institutional Approaches: partnership building

Developing on twin tracks within the same institution?

Opportunities to:

• cross skill

• share techniques and approaches

• ensure that if one approach secures an entry into a

discipline the breadth of future thinking themes is explored

Can enterprise educators get through doors (staff and student)

sustainability educators can’t?

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09 May 2014Holistic Experience

Skills for

Lived lives

Using student creativity

Harnessing the natural enterprise of students

Retaining their holistic view

Reflective action to help identification of THEIR view

• Student action often instinctively combines sustainability and enterprise

? Are OUR silos the problem

? Can we “Unteach” ourselves

? Do we give space to personal reflection in learning

? How do we value radical creativity?

Challenges:

• Framing the problem

• Catching the vision

• Figuring out a strategy

Gatekeepers?

• Work together

• Create joint opportunities

• Share resources

• Lead by example

• Celebrate good practice

• Explain win:win enterprise

• Show by example holistic thinking is possible

• Create sustainability that will work

• Trust students rather than creating silos

• ….. Help students see they CAN create the

world they want

Challenge:

We arrive

creative – are we

more or less

creative by the

end of year 1?

Year 2 social science student

How can we create the future?