PERSONAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP & ENTREPRENEURIAL FORMATION
On May 1st, Pernille Skov begins a 3-year Industrial Ph.D. at the Department of Educational Science at DPU, Aarhus University.
The project is funded by Innovation Fund Denmark’s Industrial Researcher Programme and runs from May 1, 2026 to April 29, 2029.
The project investigates and develops a new form of entrepreneurship education aimed at graduate-level students in the humanities, social sciences, and artistic disciplines — more specifically, the group of students who do not identify with or feel motivated by start-ups, innovation, and project-making, and who therefore find no meaning in the existing offer of entrepreneurship education. The project has two research questions:
- How can personal entrepreneurship be fostered among graduate students through teaching that focuses on students’ relational practice between their field of study and the surrounding world?
- How can entrepreneurial formation (Bildung) be defined as a concept within higher education?
The project develops two new concepts: personal entrepreneurship, understood as the student’s ability to connect professional/academic knowledge, personal motivation, and the surrounding world into a meaningful and sustainable professional practice; and entrepreneurial formation, understood as a way of relating to one’s field of study, oneself, and society — oriented toward personal entrepreneurship as its purpose rather than as a set of competencies.
Data collection takes place in collaboration with the National Film School of Denmark, the Rhythmic Music Conservatory, and KU Lighthouse at University of Copenhagen.
Read more about the project here.
Photo: Sandbjerg Gods, view from the library during a writing retreat