Engage – Centre for Engaged Education through Entrepreneurship has been a Center of Excellence in Education since 2017. The Norwegian Centres for Excellence in Education (SFU) is a national initiative to recognize and stimulate excellence in Norwegian higher education. The initiative was established in 2010 and is funded by the Ministry of Education and Research. There are currently tvelve centres. The initiative is administered by Diku.
The world is constantly changing, with increasing pace and intensity. These changes have profound consequences for human life—for the climate and environment, technological opportunities, business practices, public policy, safety, education, and society as a whole.
This complex environment calls for citizens who have the ability to identify challenges, the will to act upon these challenges, the knowledge to acquire the resources and skills needed and the confidence to be the driving force for change, regardless of resistance. These people are the agents of change, the entrepreneurs, willing and able to make changes, engaging challenges with creativity and fearlessness.
The ambition of Engage is to develop students’ entrepreneurial skills at the higher education level to become change agents in all contexts.
Engage ambitions
Engage ambitions is to ensure that the ability to identify new opportunities, the will to act upon these opportunities, and the knowledge to acquire the resources and skills needed to innovate for the better, becomes fundamental elements in all disciplines at the higher education level.
We call for a change in how universities educate students in entrepreneurial skills that can prepare them for important roles as change agents in business and society.
Engage develops education methods and materials on entrepreneurship, advises on the implementation of entrepreneurship in all disciplines at the higher education level and facilitates cooperation and networking. Student engagement is key for developing a center for excellence in education, and the students are involved in designing and testing new teaching methods in various contexts.
Engage has a strong research group connected to the centre, including ten PhD candidates. Through research, Engage seeks to generate new knowledge about how to teach entrepreneurial skills in various disciplines.
Engage organization
Engage is a consortium consisting of the NTNU School of Entrepreneurship, Nord University Business School, NTNU Experts in Teamwork, TrollLABS and Spark NTNU.
Together these five partners contribute with variations in action-based, challenge-based and experience-based learning models as a basis for interdisciplinary interactions and complementary skills and approaches. This is a strong foundation for developing entrepreneurial skills among students in different disciplines. The centre host is NTNU faculty of economics and management.
Steering committee
Monica Rolfsen, Leader of the steering committee, Dean and professor, Faculty of Economics and Management, NTNU Marit Reitan, Pro-Rector for Education, NTNU Levi Gårseth-Nesbakk, Pro-Rector for Education, Nord University Erlend Bullvåg, Dean, Nord Business school, Nord University Marielle Christiansen, Head of Department, Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management, NTNU Sven Marius Hofgaard, Student representative, NTNU
Øystein Widding is the Center Director and a professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and Adjunct Professor at Nord University Business School. Øystein is one of the founders of the NTNU School of Entrepreneurship.
Torgeir Aadland is Co-Director at engage and Associate Professor at NTNU. The focus of Torgeir’s PhD is on assessment of entrepreneurship educations. Torgeir is also responsible for finances at engage.
Elli is the Leader of Work Package 1 (WP1) and a associate professor in Experts in teamwork (EiT). Elli has worked at the University of Cambridge, UK and University of Antwerp, Belgium. Her research interests include design thinking, innovation and entrepreneurship and sustainability.
Heikki is the Leader of Work Package 2 (WP2)
a researcher at NTNU/TrollLABS. Heikki`s focus is on prototyping and design thinking in product development, especially in data-driven products and systems. He is also one the contact points for CERN collaboration and a member of TrollLABS early stage product development laboratory.
Dag Håkon Haneberg is the Leader of Work Package 3 (WP3) and a Associate Professor at NTNU. The focus of Dag Håkon’s PhD is on outcomes of venture creation programs beyond new ventures. Dag Håkon has also been involved in other entrepreneurship initiatives such as Spark, FRAM and DRIV.
Gry is the Leader for Work Package 4 and a professor at Nord University. Gry is responsible for engage activities at Nord University and has expertise in entrepreneurship, innovation and related policy areas. She has studied business founding in agriculture, tourism and in high technology environments.
Fufen Jin is the leader for Work Package 5 at Engage and a researcher. Prior to joining Engage, Fufen had undertaken numerous research projects ranging from child language and literacy development to STEM education. She has extensive experience in collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data. Fufen holds a PhD in Linguistics from NTNU.
Roger Sørheim is a Research Director at engage and a Professor at NTNU and Adjunct Professor at Nord University Business School. His main research interests include entrepreneurial finance and entrepreneurship education. Roger is one of the founders of the NTNU School of Entrepreneurship.
Maiken is leader of the train-the-trainer focus at engage and project leader for the entrepreneurship ecosystem at Nord University. Maiken is also working on establishing a Master of Entrepreneurship (VCP) at Nord University. She has graduated with a Master of Science in Business at Nord University Business School in 2017 with a specialization in innovation and entrepreneurship.
Eirik Medbø
Leader train-the-trainer
Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management (IØT), NTNU
Eirik is the one of the leader of the train-the-trainer focus at engage. Eirik is also a Innovation Manager at NTNU. He has graduated with a MSc from the NTNU School of Entrepreneurship. He co-founded the company AssiTech in 2012. He has also experience with mentoring of entrepreneurs from initiatives like Spark and Take-Off.
Ingrid is the leader of the focus area student engagement at engage and a Advisor at NTNU. Ingrid holds a Master in Social Anthropology from NTNU. Her task is to develop learning arena that through entrepreneurship helps create change agents.
Line is a Project manager at engage and Nord University. Line graduated in 2019 with a Master of Science in Business. She specialized in innovation and entrepreneurship in her degree.
The focus of Line’s work in Engage is student innovation, social media and administrative work.
Karin is a Researcher at engage and a Aassociate Professor at Nord University. Karin is is interested in Strategic Entrepreneurship, Rural Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Sustainability. As part of the Engage team, Karin is mainly working on the following projects; ‘development of entrepreneurial mindset’ and ‘Engage Sustainability’.
Lise Aaboen is a Researcher at engage and a professor of technology-based entrepreneurship at NTNU. Her research interests include incubators, new technology-based firms, entrepreneurship education and early customer relationships.
Even Larsen Assistant Professor and is a teacher by profession with a Master of Science in entrepreneurship from NTNU School of Entrepreneurship. Even teach idea generation, business development, feasibility studies and negotiation at NTNU School of Entrepreneurship.
Marianne is an Associate Professor at Nord University Business School. Her academic interests include entrepreneurial finance, innovation and entrepreneurship education. Marianne`s work within Engage include teaching, research and development within innovation and entrepreneurship education.
Sølvi Solvoll is a Researcher and a Associate Professor at Nord University. Sølvi`s main research interest is the new venture creation process, as well as entrepreneurs’ decision making, learning and ecosystem. Her PhD explored new venture creation in the tourism industry through the theoretical lenses of effectuation and causation.
Title of project is “Nurses Becoming Entrepreneurial”. Purpose is to provide a multifaceted answer to the question of how nurses become entrepreneurial, by looking through the lenses of entrepreneurial nursing, entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial passion.
“Venture creation process in Venture Creation Programs” is the title of the research project. Purpose is to explore how the practices developed by venture creation programs influence the venture creation process.
Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management (IØT), NTNU
+47 913 07 351
Title of the research project is “Entrepreneurial learning: learning through failure for nascent entrepreneurs in context of action-based entrepreneurship education”. Purpose is to investigate entrepreneurial learning process in context of venture creation programs.
Title of the research project is “Entrepreneurship Education in Higher Music Education”. Purpose is to examine entrepreneurial learning in the context of arts education and how entrepreneurship education can help prepare music students to sustain careers as professional musicians.
Title of the research project is “Entrepreneurship education and mental health”. Purpose is to explore the link between entrepreneurship and mental disorders, and how entrepreneurship education can harness the positive aspects of such symptoms.
Title of the research project is “Buidling legitimacy by high-tech student-led new ventures”. The purpose is to investigate the process by which student-led high-tech ventures develop their legitimacy claims and successfully build acceptance for their companies.
“Challenges in action-based entrepreneurship education from a student perspective” is the title of the research project. The urpose is to explore the team processes when students face challenges to increase our knowledge of the learning process in action-based education.
Ragnhild Nordeng Fauchald
PhD Candidate
Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management (IØT), NTNU
“Experiential learning in the university entrepreneurial ecosystem”. The purpose is to investigate how actors in the university entrepreneurial ecosystem engage in students learning processes, and how the university entrepreneurship ecosystem can develop by using students experiences.
Erik O`Donnell
PhD Candidate
Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management (IØT), NTNU
“Opportunity evaluation in the context of sustainable entrepreneurship”.
Purpose: to understand the relationship between knowledge, skills and attitudes and opportunity evaluation. I.e. how does someone’s knowledge, skills and attitudes affect the opportunities they pursue in the context of sustainable entrepreneurship?
Mariel Hjelle
PhD Candidate
Department of Industrial Economics anTechnology Management (IØT), NTNU
“The Role of Metacompetencies in Entrepreneurial Learning and Decision Making”
Purpose is to examine how metacognition and meta-affection intervene in the entrepreneurial learning process and to increase our knowledge of the entrepreneurial mindset.
Silje Granås
Project Coordinator
Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management (IØT), NTNU
Silje is the project manager for establishing Spark*. After 1,5 years in Spark she is now responsible for planning the implementation of the organization at other locations. This includes partner establishment, gathering resources, recruitment, and training mentors.
Ann Elida Eide
Postdoctoral researcher
Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management (IØT), NTNU
Project: “Entrepreneurial Intuition and Novel Trailblazing: Incompatible Contrasts or Complementary Assets?”. Purpose: investigate connections between two contrasting processes in entrepreneurship – the decision making tool of intuition, relying on experience; and the creation of entirely new knowledge paths (‘blazing’ new trails).
