This summer, Cork University Business School has been particularly active with its offerings of entrepreneurial activities that span across the country and numerous industry sectors. Entrepreneurship is a key driver of economic growth and one of the top priorities outlined in UCC Strategic Plan 2023–2028, with Goal One action calling to ‘Create an innovation culture and entrepreneurial campus, underpinned by an ethos of creativity and discovery’. According to the latest Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report (2022), the following statistics point to a very positive entrepreneurship climate in Ireland:
- 1 in 7 people in Ireland aspire to start a business in the next 3 years
- Ireland ranks 3rd in Europe for entrepreneurs with ‘high jobs growth’ expectations
- Ireland has the third-highest rate for early-stage female entrepreneurs across European countries
- More than 3 in 5 Irish entrepreneurs are trying to minimise the environmental impact of their business
- There is an increase in youth entrepreneurship: The proportion of 18 to 24 age group that are early-stage entrepreneurs was 16.4% in 2021, up from just 6.7% in 2018
Cork University Business School is actively supporting student entrepreneurship through numerous modules, programmes, competitions and initiatives across the School. In addition, Professor Joe Bogue and Dr Lana Repar from Department of Food Business and Development were most recently awarded funding from the Higher Education Authority to run three entrepreneurship-related projects that provide a platform for student entrepreneurs and staff teaching entrepreneurship to advance their skills and create innovative solutions for society, planet, businesses and education.
Developing an SDGs-driven Entrepreneurship Culture across Ireland
A collaborative project titled “Developing an SDGs-driven Entrepreneurship Culture across Ireland” was awarded over €210,000.00 and is led by University College Cork. The project aims to further enhance entrepreneurship education with an SDGs component across Irish HEIs with two main objectives:
Objective 1: Embed SDGs into entrepreneurship education through effective tools for students and for those staff delivering entrepreneurial materials.
Objective 2: Build a national collaborative network focused on embedding the SDGs into entrepreneurship education.
This represents a unique and first of a kind collaboration on SDGs-driven entrepreneurship among the six Irish partner HEIs including University College Cork, Munster Technological University, Trinity College Dublin, South East Technological University, Dundalk Institute of Technology and Dublin City University. This project nurtures collaboration among partners to pioneer better practices that will enrich the way entrepreneurship is taught across Ireland.
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As part of the project, the following initiatives are being championed by the partners:
- Short Courses for Students and Staff with accompanying Digital Badges: Short online courses and accompanying digital badges (micro-credentials) are being specifically created by partners and international experts to encourage students and staff from all disciplines (especially those not traditionally included in entrepreneurship activities, such as arts, medicine, nursing etc.) to learn about, and embrace, sustainable entrepreneurship and the role it plays in addressing societal, economic and environmental challenges. Short online courses and digital badges will be available to all partner institutions at all levels: graduate and postgraduate, executive education and adult continuing education, as well as for junior and senior staff who teach entrepreneurship.
- Simulation Technology: Through collaboration with industry, an existing simulation game was redesigned by adding completely new elements: an emphasis on learning about SDGs-driven entrepreneurship ideas, techniques and best practices, and how they impact the key business outcomes such as strategy, costs, margins and profits. In a new bespoke simulation game, students make a series of informed decisions (and trade-offs), which imitate the real-life business environment. The goal of the game is to achieve the highest score across different categories, including as high a profit as possible, in addition to getting a high sustainability score. The scenario includes managing a new coffee shop with the SDGs incorporated into the simulation game through modelling and algorithms.
- Master Classes: The emphasis is on sharing partners’ knowledge, resources and good practices in entrepreneurship education, with an SDGs component, to enhance the existing offerings and student learning experience. This initiative includes master classes among partner institutions with a focus on materials related to the SDGs and entrepreneurship. Such exchanges and learnings among partners foster closer collaborations, introduce different perspectives and challenges to students and encourage creativity in teaching techniques.
- SDGs-driven Entrepreneurship Toolkit: As part of this project, partners will develop an SDGs-driven Entrepreneurship Toolkit that will assist in teaching entrepreneurship with an SDGs focus. This Toolkit will provide inspiration for staff through dynamic examples ready to be applied in the classroom or during activities such as SDGs-focused hackathons, business plan competitions, summer schools or bootcamps.
- Hackathon for SDGs: Undergraduate and postgraduate students from the partners will have an opportunity to come together as teams in a one-day hybrid event to solve a problem related to one of the SDGs. This will advance partners’ efforts to advance the SDGs agenda through education and co-creation of innovative solutions for the SDGs through a Hackathon for SDGs.
Current work on this project was presented at the latest PRME Chapter UK & Ireland Conference 2025 that featured the theme “Partnering for Progress: Enhancing Collaboration, Building Communities, and Navigating Conflict to Accelerate Agenda 2030”. The Conference focused on the transformative power of partnerships in achieving environmental, social, and economic sustainability, which encapsulates the vision of developing an SDGs-driven entrepreneurship culture across Ireland.
UCC HEA Summer School 2025 on Sustainable Entrepreneurship, Creativity, Innovation and Leadership
The goal of this Summer School was to introduce second-level student to an Entrepreneurship Ecosystem, encourage them to acquire new business and social skills, increase their capacities for innovative thinking and facilitate learning of the concepts and practices of entrepreneurship, creativity and leadership development. Since 2017, over 400 second-level students enrolled in UCC HEA Summer Schools with entrepreneurship theme. For a week in June 2025, over 40 second-level students from across Ireland embarked on an entrepreneurial journey and were guided by staff from the University College Cork Entrepreneurship Ecosystem, established entrepreneurs and innovation experts. Dynamic and practical materials were prepared and covered relevant areas, from creative thinking and ideation, to commercialisation of ideas and leadership. Students developed their concept and pitch entrepreneurial idea in the form of a written solution to a challenge and a brief video, for amazing prizes.
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Daily activities during the Summer School included:
- Online Lectures: The lectures helped students understand the key concepts and prepare them for their project.
- The Entrepreneur’s Story: The stories contained exciting details of an entrepreneur’s journey. A mixture of younger and mature, female and male entrepreneurs, from various sectors, were presented to spark students’ interest and creativity.
- Daily Challenges: Short, catchy videos outlined the daily challenges. Students submitted their solutions to the daily challenges and the best ideas were awarded.
- Online Quizzes: A total of five quizzes covered the themes that were introduced during the Summer School and ensured that students had an opportunity to test their acquired knowledge.
- Mentoring Sessions: These sessions enabled interaction with the mentor and encouraged asking questions and discussing different ideas.
This year, the following prizes were awarded to the students that developed the best Solutions to the given 2025 Challenge:
- The Most Innovative New Sustainable Solution (€600)
- The Most Commercially-ready New Sustainable Solution (€500)
- The Most Creative New Sustainable Solution (€500)
- The Best Leadership Qualities Reflected in a Solution (€500)
- The Best Marketing and Promotional Idea (€500)
The winning entries addressed a wide range of SDGs/sustainability issues, including education for sustainability, wellbeing, waste reduction and clean energy. The ideas ranged from services to products and apps, and were innovative, creative and exciting.
‘I loved the challenges and thinking outside the box with a sustainable hat on. Thank you for the really nice experience. I hopefully will see you at UCC in about 7 years’ time!’
Second-level student participant in the UCC HEA Summer School 2025
‘I feel like this school would be something I would recommend to all my friends. There was just so much variety to explore things. From lectures to quizzes to daily challenges to magic words to mentoring sessions and finally entrepreneurs’ stories. It was absolutely AMAZING! I can’t forget the amazing prizes either!’
Second-level student participant in the UCC HEA Summer School 2025
Student Inc. Entrepreneurship Accelerator Programme
Student Inc., with over €660,000.00 awarded, is Ireland’s longest running student accelerator programme which encourages student entrepreneurs across all the disciplines to assess the feasibility of their business ideas and start a business in a safe and nurturing environment. It provides students with seed funding and access to a structured programme and an exciting network of entrepreneurs, trainers, mentors and investors. This year marks Student Inc.'s biggest cohort yet, as it welcomes over 75 student entrepreneurs from 9 partner universities across Ireland including Munster Technological University (founder of the Student Inc. programme), University College Cork (longest partnership, since 2019), University of Limerick, Mary Immaculate College, South East Technological University, Technological University of the Shannon, Dundalk Institute of Technology, Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology, and Atlantic Technological University.
From June to August 2025, ten selected Student Inc. participants from UCC will be advancing and perfecting their business ideas using various techniques such as strategic innovation, design thinking, customer discovery, peer-to-peer knowledge exchange and business pitching. The current UCC student cohort showcases a diversity of students’ backgrounds, demonstrating that business ideas can (and should) come from all the different disciplines to enrich our society and ensure sustainability and progress:
- Eoghan Cassidy, 1st year BSc Finance
- Ronan Curley, 1st year BSc Commerce
- Conor Dalton, 1st year BSc Business Information Systems
- Matthew Dineen, 4th year BSc Commerce (International) with Hispanic Studies
- Dylan Dunne, 4th year BSc Finance
- Liam Healy, 4th year BSc Computer Science (Software Entrepreneurship)
- Ayeza Masroor, MSc Food Business and Innovation
- Abigail O’Sullivan and Keira Geaney, 1st year BSc Government and Political Science
- Críóna Riordan, MSc Food Business and Innovation
- Liam Sheridan, 2nd year BA Economics (through Transformational Learning)
The students’ ideas range from food, fashion and fitness to ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) and gaming.
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‘No matter what stage you’re at, just starting out or already developing an idea, there’s always something new to learn that challenges your perspective. For me, the supportive environment at Student Inc. gave me the space to grow personally and professionally by pushing me outside my comfort zone.’
Ayeza Masroor, MSc Food Business and Innovation Programme (developing Irish-Asian potato based noodles for consumers with fact paced lifestyles seeking healthier convenience foods, Student Inc.)
‘Being part of a group where we can learn from each other’s experiences, share feedback, and support one another has been incredibly motivating and valuable as I develop my idea.’
Liam Healy, BSc Computer Science (developing a gaming user-generated content data analytics platform, Student Inc.)
For further information about the entrepreneurship activities you can contact Dr Lana Repar ([email protected]) and Professor Joe Bogue ([email protected]).