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The primary purpose of this article is to propose a conceptual base from which an appropriate management and leadership development framework for supporting capability building of professionals and practitioners across the UK incubation community can be built. Furthermore, it provides insights into how such a framework could be applied through an initiative developed in the East Midlands region of the UK.

A review of the research in this field is summarised as an empirical background to proposing a conceptual framework. The author explores the evolution of incubation and identifies specific models and processes of incubation, as reported elsewhere in the specialist literature. This framework is further explored within the context of its applicability as a tool for building management and leadership development capability.

The author recognises the lack of published research in this field, despite its importance for enhancing incubation performance outcomes. Three main framework components are drawn from this comprehensive review. Four different learner types are identified, and these form the basis of outline incubation management and leadership development programme options, with differentiated indicative syllabi.

This article reinforces the need for, and has demonstrated the importance of, enhancing human capital capability within professionals and practitioners in the incubation community. The conceptual framework presented in this paper provides a foundation from which learning and development programmes can be provided.

This paper aims to identify criteria for assessing the viability of institutional strategies for enterprise education and to develop models that describe methods of organising enterprise education.

The paper identifies and explains a number of key criteria including: educational impact, financial sustainability, academic credibility, human capital, structural embeddedness, context and infrastructure, alignment with institutional strategy and policy, community engagement, and alignment with policy context and funding. The paper then considers a number of models. These models are separated into two clusters: single department‐led models and campus wide models. The evaluative criteria are applied to each model to explore the impact of particular strategies and the criteria are used to assess the long‐term viability of each model. The paper concludes by making judgements about each criteria and their usefulness for helping understand long‐term sustainability of enterprise education.

The paper shows that different models may be valuable in different higher education contexts and illustrates the temporal nature of the relationships between the models.

This is principally a conceptual paper that can be developed further by the application of the evaluative criteria empirically. The models developed can be tested and analysed further through reference to observations of practice.

The paper makes a valuable contribution to knowledge in this subject area by describing and analysing the various models of organisation that could be used to support enterprise education in higher education institutions.

The aim of this paper is to present the findings of a comprehensive study of enterprise and entrepreneurship education provision in England's 131 Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The paper is based upon the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship (NCGE) mapping study of formal and informal activity conducted in 2006.

All HEIs in England were invited to complete an online institutional mapping template seeking data on enterprise and entrepreneurship accredited programmes/modules, non‐accredited enterprise and entrepreneurship provision and other institutional characteristics that support enterprise and entrepreneurship development. The research team maintained regular contact with all HEIs to maximise participation and to provide support where requested. A number of institutional visits were made by the research team both to introduce the study and to assist data entry where there was limited resource. The approach led to the collection of a unique and robust data set.

The results illuminate the scale and scope of dedicated provision for enterprise and entrepreneurship across the HE sector in England. Of all institutions, 94 per cent participated, ensuring that these results are analogous to a census report. The results further highlight the penetration of the student population and in particular the nature of their engagement.

This is the first time such an approach has been taken in England and the results are illuminating for academics, policy‐makers (particularly regional development agencies) and enterprise educators. The data provide an evidence base for supporting further development needs across the HE sector and offer opportunities for benchmarking and the exchange of practice, knowledge and experience.

Business incubation is a new and fast growing industry in the UK. The environments within which incubation can take place and their descriptors as used across the industry are many and varied. The language engaged in by policy‐makers, professionals and practitioners commonly applies metaphors to convey meaning of loosely defined terms and concepts in a diverse market seeking increased clarity. Metaphors can offer a qualitative approach to sense‐making. By articulating ideas through metaphors, individuals can often expand the concepts and expressions available through language. It is asserted that it would be valuable to incubation communities to provide shared meaning to the discourse of incubation such that further confusion is minimised. This paper aims to address this challenge by proposing a classification of incubation environment types based upon a qualitative approach to understand the incubation marketplace through its language, specifically the application of metaphor.

Focuses attention upon a recent phenomenon promoted by public sector policy and government funding and adopted within the private sector as a vehicle for wealth creation, where wealth can mean the development of different forms of capital such as financial, intellectual and social. Incubators and incubation programmes have established themselves across the globe as part of the enterprise landscape and are achieving substantial growth rates in numbers, with expectations for further growth in the near future. Emphasises the finding of recent studies suggesting that the nature and experience of incubator management and leadership positively affect client perceptions of the value and impact of their incubation experience. In conclusion, there is an emerging demand for greater professionalism within the sector and the role that current national incubation benchmarks may have on supporting management and leadership capability building. Suggests that focusing on management and leadership capability building across the sector is an important policy consideration for government in enhancing the overall performance and effectiveness of the industry.

It has been argued that a critical issue pertaining to small firm success is the ability to manage and develop a network of interdependent relationships with a wide and diverse range of stakeholders. The article explores the needs of small firms and their stakeholders in building interdependent relationships as effective learning forms for enhancing a small firm’s potential to succeed. It is suggested that small firm owners and managers need to develop specific competence frameworks when initiating and progressing such relationships. It is also suggested that those managing such dyadic relationships have been disadvantaged by the lack of appropriate guidelines to assess current levels of competence and opportunities for improvement.

The purpose of this paper is to profile the characteristics and entrepreneurial motivations of graduate entrepreneurs from black and minority ethnic (BME) communities.

To gather the data, the authors interviewed selected individuals from within the BME community (including current students and graduates from various universities, predominantly in the West Midlands, UK), analysed the transcripts and compared the findings with the review of literature.

Evidence suggests that BME graduate entrepreneurs were diverse in terms of their characteristics: size, gender, ethnicity and when they started the business. Almost all interviewees had worked for someone before they started their business. The two most compelling motivations for start up were “being your own boss”, especially for Indians and Bangladeshis; and making more money (31 per cent), in particular for African Caribbeans. Over half of interviewees started a business in a sector in which they had prior experience, knowledge or skills. Two thirds of interviewees obtained advice from family and friends, while just over a third had completed any kind of training or course.

The sample of BME graduate entrepreneurs in this study was both small and selective. It was not statistically significant, nor did it represent a random selection of the BME graduate entrepreneurs in the UK or the respective population mix. Hence, there is a need for a larger scale study and the inclusion of a white control group.

This study provides an insight into characteristics and entrepreneurial motivations of BME graduate entrepreneurs. Though the results of this study are indicative, there is a compelling case for further research into this relatively unexplored group.

To generate and test a coherent framework of incubation strategies and interventions that can be deployed to encourage enterprise development through new venture creation in local economies.

Postal questionnaire to new ventures, combined with ongoing engagement of and consultation with incubation practitioners and local economic development professionals.

Seven generic incubation strategies were identified and developed. Four focus on a premises‐driven approach to incubation, and three on a more process‐based approach. All seven strategies represent opportunities for tailored and hence targeted approaches to the development of incubators and incubation services.

The study focused on one rural county in England. There is a need to test the strategies in other contexts, to determine their wider relevance.

The seven incubation strategies can be used to develop tailored approaches to incubation, within a comprehensive framework of incubation “options”. The authors suggest that a combination of approaches is developed as the basis for effective local incubation practice.

The paper provides a framework for developing incubation strategies that offers coherence and the opportunity for “bottom‐up” yet integrated approaches.

This article aims to report the results of a complete survey of enterprise education in all higher education institutions (HEIs) in England, undertaken in 2010 by the Institute for Small Business & Entrepreneurship (ISBE) on behalf of the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship (NCGE). The survey builds on prior work undertaken by the NCGE in England in 2006 and in 2007.

The survey aimed to establish a complete picture of curricular and extra‐curricular enterprise and entrepreneurship education. The survey uses a similar structure to the previous survey, enabling comparison to be made with enterprise provision over the 2006‐2010 period, as well as with the 2008 European survey of entrepreneurship in HE.

The results provide a stock‐take of enterprise education provision in participating HEIs and highlight the connections in institutional strategies between enterprise education, incubation/new venture support, graduate employability, innovation and academic enterprise. The paper reveals “hotspots” and gaps in enterprise provision and offers “benchmarks” for the sector.

The article offers a summary of the implications for the future development and sustainability of enterprise education in HE, in relation to policy, funding and other changes in the sector. It also considers these issues in relation to recommendations from professional educators and government policy for future development of enterprise in HE and comments on the policy impact of this work.

The timing of the survey, in May‐July 2010, was important as it reflected the end of a period of over ten years of sustained investment in enterprise in higher education by the previous Labour government in the UK, through a range of funding initiatives. As major public expenditure reductions in support for HE and enterprise activity followed, this represented the “high water mark” of publicly funded enterprise activity in the HE sector, and raised the question of how enterprise education and support activities would become sustainable for the future. The report analyses existing provision, assesses its development over the 2006‐2010 period, and provides conclusions and recommendations covering future policy, development, resourcing, and sustainability of enterprise and entrepreneurship provision in higher education.

This paper aims to explore the philosophical and conceptual understanding of entrepreneurship education through borrowing and applying conceptualisations of education from education theory to bring deeper meaning to approaches to entrepreneurship education in UK higher education institutions (HEIs).

This paper identifies existing theoretical and conceptual frameworks from adult education and applies these to the phenomenon of entrepreneurship education as a sense‐making tool from which deeper insights and understanding are gained.

As a conceptual paper the “findings” relate to the unearthing of the inherent drivers and values to the design and delivery of entrepreneurship education in UK HEIs. Applying education theoretical frameworks enables presentation of a purposeful and guiding framework for effective curricula design in entrepreneurship thereby enabling coherence and cohesion of approach and achievable outcomes. Furthermore, the paper maps the purpose and role of educators against a segmented framework to draw out distinctions across contexts and to present the need for a clarification of the role of the educator in the entrepreneurial learning process. This enables a discussion of the development needs of entrepreneurship educators for the UK.

Overall, the paper presents implications for HEIs in how they conceive of and introduce entrepreneurship education; educators and the role they perform in effective entrepreneurship education and curricula designers in developing meaningful “fit for purpose” offerings across the diversity of the entrepreneurial opportunity environment.

This paper further builds on a significant gap in the extant knowledge and literature for enhancing understanding in the development of the field of entrepreneurship education within higher education in the UK.