A new university degree that requires students to start a new business to graduate, has been launched by Dragons Den panelist Theo Paphitis at Huddersfield University.
Paphitis will lead a series of business masterclasses during the three year course alongside world renowned business expert Michael Gerber.
“We need to re-invent the way we start a business,” Gerber said. “The current thinking isn’t working and hasn’t worked properly for over 30 years. Too many small businesses still fail in the first five years of their existence. This must stop.”
Professor John Thompson, the academic behind the degree, added: “Most people who start a business are good at the technical aspects of what they are doing. What they are typically less good at is running a business and this affects the growth potential.
“In large part this is because they never trained to run a business; they trained to be a technician and they became expert at that. This degree will change the way a would-be entrepreneur starts and runs the business from the outset.”
The degree course will be available from next September.
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1 comment so far
1 Nigel Adams // Nov 2, 2008 at 4:48 pm
As Programme Director of the BSc Business Enterprise at the University of Buckingham, I wish to comment on your post “Theo Paphitis Backs Entrepreneur Degree” and also let your readers know that there are several similar degree courses already operating.
Professor Thompson’s planned programme at Huddersfield will not be unique. Our first cohort of students started to study for their BSc in Business Enterprise honours degrees at the University of Buckingham in January 2006 and graduated at the end of 2007.
Our second and third cohorts are studying for their honours degrees and running their businesses. For details about our programme and our students’ businesses, please see http://www.buckingham.ac.uk/business/bbe.
Huddersfield is also not unique in launching a 3-year ‘entrepreneur degree’ with the opportunity of starting a business, Coventry and Staffordshire Universities both offer similar degrees, though they do not offer their students the seed-corn capital to run their businesses, as we do. At Buckingham our students can achieve an honours degree and have a business with an 18 month track-record in just 2 years.
One other point about Professor Thompson’s new programme, from our experience, it will be very difficult to persuade really entrepreneurial students to study and wait two years before starting their businesses. Many of our students are not happy waiting two terms!
I would, however, like to congratulate Professor Thompson on joining a small, exclusive, but growing club and wish him all the best for his new programme.