In the past few months, the University of Antwerp (department of Management, Faculty of Business and Economics) volunteered to act as national delegate for the GUESSS Project 2021. GUESSS stands for Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students’ Survey. This international project is organized and managed through a cooperation of the University of St. Gallen and the University of Bern in Switzerland.
As the name suggests, this project focuses on the entrepreneurial attitude, intention and activities of students globally. It is one of the largest entrepreneurship research projects in the world. Since its first data collection in 2003, GUESSS has grown exponentially. In 2021, the GUESSS project collected 267,366 survey responses from 58 countries. As a university, we are extremely grateful to be able to contribute to this success, together with Ghent University and HEC-Liège.
Supporting local, young entrepreneurs
To stimulate students’ survey participation, we organized a raffle with student-entrepreneur vouchers in Flanders. In Antwerp, for example, we contacted student-entrepreneurs affiliated to TAKEOFFANTWERP_, and invited them to put up for raffle vouchers from their companies, paid by the University of Antwerp. As such, we were able to assist student-entrepreneurs financially, and introduced their businesses to the larger student community.
This turned out to be a great success. In addition to reaching a record number of 2,316 survey responses, we purchased vouchers from Ecossentials, Klub Kultuur, Free Mind Free Soul, Purestone and Shop Lora.
We are honored that our contributions are not limited to theoretical research insights, but that we were also able to assist young student-entrepreneurs in a more practical way. Although our actions are without doubt relatively small compared to the challenges that young student-entrepreneurs face to create and operate a business, we are convinced that raising awareness and support for young student-entrepreneurs is of the utmost importance to further stimulate our (local) economy and the entrepreneurial mindset of our higher education students.
More info
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- Guesss Project 2021
- TAKEOFFANTWERP_
- Studying & entreneurship at the UAntwerp (in Dutch or English)
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Need more information? Don’t hesitate to contact the UAntwerp researchers: Prof. dr. Johanna Vanderstraeten and Phan Thanh Tung. They are both linked to the Faculty of Business and Economics, Department of Management.