Expanding engagement: Africa–Europe transnational education programmes across the entrepreneurial lifecycle

The fourth United Nations Sustainable Development Goal is to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”. Much of previous research into entrepreneurship education in Africa has focused on universities. However, many potential African entrepreneurs do not have access to university education. To address this gap, findings are reported here from an Africa–Europe action research project with entrepreneurship centres and innovation organizations. This transnational entrepreneurship education (TNEE) project encompassed four stages of the entrepreneurial lifecycle: development of basic skills for entrepreneurship, business concept ideation, startups, and company growth. Here, details are provided of the entrepreneurship education programmes that were developed and delivered for each of these four stages. Through stage-specific actions, TNEE engaged learners from several African countries. Findings indicate that a wide range of learners, including unemployed youths who have limited Internet access, can be engaged in entrepreneurship education. In addition, findings indicate that education in entrepreneurial skills is important at the beginning of the entrepreneurial lifecycle but transfer of technological knowledge can be more important later in the entrepreneurial lifecycle. Furthermore, innovation organizations from outside of Africa can support African entrepreneurship centres with the transfer of technological knowledge to entrepreneurs. However, this is only useful if the technological knowledge of innovation organizations is not restricted to research but also extends to technology implementations in practice.