IdeasLab Student Innovation Hub

By project VIADUCT

Published on 31 August 2023

Ireland

Northern and Western

About this good practice

IdeasLab was conceived as a part of the strategy to support University of Galway’s (UoG) engagement in Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, to enhance its capacity in this area, help create impact at scale from innovation/entrepreneurial outputs, support an entrepreneurial culture in the university+beyond. It enhances/connects UoG entrepreneurial ecosystem in partnership with community, enterprise, regional stakeholders.

Objective is to nurture the innovation+entrepreneurial spirit, talent and potential of university students, harnessing the quadruple helix. It is implemented via dedicated programmes, including an Enterprise Challenge which brings together multidisciplinary student teams to solve enterprise challenges, Start100, a 6 week programme to develop an early stage business idea, CreateHER - a programme for female undergrad students to develop skills, ideas + confidence to create new businesses, and an Internship

Programme where IdeasLab staff support student projects with out-campus activities. It includes teaching modules + learning facilitated via participation in EU projects/initiatives.
Beneficiaries are UoG students, who develop skills, ideas, tools for innovation +entrepreneurship. Using human-centred design approach, students can create a positive impact on people/world. Enterprises benefit by having access to future employees with entrepreneurial mindset if they choose to pivot from their idea into industry with increased spin-out activity.

Resources needed

4 x FTEs.1 Director of Entrepreneurial Development, 1 Head of Entrepreneurial Development, 1 Community/Impact Manager, 1 Marketing/Communications Manager.
1 X FTE on short term 1 year administrative contract.
Day to Day Operational costs.
Empathy Lab Costs (simulation equipment/recordings etc).

Evidence of success

Academic year 2022/2023: >1500 Enterprise/students engagements. Start100 UoG's first student incubator-21 teams progressing their ideas. Winner UIIN Entrepreneurship in Universities award 2023. CreateHER female undergrad programme, comprising roundtables+mentors supported by industry leaders/entrepreneurs. 15 students complete each semester.
Entrepreneurship challenge: 103 students solving 5 challenges posed by enterprises. 7 weeks, 12 Design Thinking workshops+113 enterprise mentor sessions.

Potential for learning or transfer

The IdeasLab good practice can inform other stakeholders on programmes and tools used to engage with students to help them develop entrepreneurial and innovation skills, through traditional teaching methods, but also through interactive challenges, through design thinking and empathy, through exchange and cross-fertilisation from external (non-university) stakeholders and achieving impact at scale (facilitating participation from a large number of students, while also considering inclusivity). From technical perspective, it can help transfer learnings from addressing obstacles and challenges in engaging the quadruple helix as part of the collaborative environment, including inclusion of community, enterprise and an alliance of mentors. Gender – In particular IdeasLab noticed a significant imbalance in female representation as leaders and business owners. In order to address this imbalance CreateHER was set up and will be imbedded into the IdeasLab offerings going forward.