Bergen Entrepreneurship Academy: A joint venture for education in innovation and entrepreneurship
The three academic institutions HVL, NHH and UiB have joined forces to create a common platform for promoting student entrepreneurship education and activities. The initiative is called Bergen Entrepreneurship Academy (BEA), and its vision is to facilitate interdisciplinary student entrepreneurship activities across the three institutions, and to foster collaboration with industry clusters, innovation hubs and alumni.
BEA is a response to a call for developing a more entrepreneurial mindset among students, and to enable an environment of experiential learning where interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation can take place. BEA is an ideal arena for students to collaborate across disciplines, and builds on successful interdisciplinary entrepreneurship programs found among other global academic institutions such as Aalto University, Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship and Sydney School of Entrepreneurship.
The overall goal of BEA as a platform is for the academic institutions to play a central role in the student entrepreneurship activities that finds place in the region, and to ensure that the activities have a pedagogical aspect to them. Also, BEA will provide an opportunity to increase networking between students, entrepreneurs, clusters, academic partners, sponsors and the broader startup ecosystem. Through the BEA initiative, students will develop an entrepreneurial mind and skillset that will potentially create new businesses, new jobs and innovative solutions for established firms.
As a structure, Bergen Entrepreneurship Academy is a collaboration between HVL, NHH and UiB. The project is organized with a Steering Committee where management from the three collaborative institutions are represented, an operational Working Group for the BEA project, and two sub-groups - the Program Committee and Technical Committee - for the organization of the annual BEA conference.
Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL) is one of the largest higher education institutions in Norway. HVL was formed through a merger between Bergen University College, Sogn og Fjordane University College and Stord/Haugesund University College on January 1 2017.
HVL has a clear professional and working life-oriented profile. Through education, research and development we create new knowledge and expertise, anchored internationally and with solutions that work locally.
HVL stretches over 5 campuses and 400 kilometeres on the western coast of Norway. The university comprises 4 faculties, and offers a broad range of academic programmes at Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD levels.
Students at undergraduate and postgraduate level have access to high quality exchange opportunities abroad and staff-mobility is encouraged.
NHH Norwegian School of Economics is one of the leading business schools in Europe. NHH has an internationally recognised research environment and is the first choice for students who want to study business administration in Norway.In close cooperation with the business community and society, NHH is developing new knowledge and creating values for a sustainable future.
NHH has an international profile and cooperates with 170 universities and business schools in more than 50 countries. The school comprises 6 departments and 17 research centers.
The University of Bergen (UiB) is an internationally recognised research university. Academic diversity and high quality are fundamental for UiB. UiB is the most cited university in Norway.
There are seven faculties at UiB, and a significant share of both students and graduating doctors are from outside Norway.