Education Impact

Entrepreneurship education (the building of knowledge and skills either “about” or “for the purpose of” entrepreneurship) is becoming increasingly commonplace in primary, secondary and tertiary-level educational institutions around the world. There is an increasing demand for knowledge about the entrepreneurial process, and what this means for those starting up businesses today.

GEM’s vast, reliable databases and array of comprehensive reports make it a valuable resource for educators. The National Team network, incorporating 100+ academic institutions in 75 countries, helps to disseminate GEM research throughout the educational system.

Why is GEM useful in entrepreneurship education?

GEM is the only project of its scale to focus on the individual entrepreneur. The data gathered by GEM is unique in its ability to paint a picture of the entrepreneur’s journey.

GEM provides an unparalleled insight into national entrepreneurship. Students consulting the annual National Reports, published by teams of knowledgeable local experts and freely distributed on the GEM website, can learn an enormous amount about the entrepreneurial ecosystem of a given country.

GEM is an authority on global entrepreneurship. Those studying global entrepreneurship can look across the many countries in GEM to get a landscape view of entrepreneurship around the world. The key GEM indicators may be compared with other measures, such as the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index, the Political Stability Index, the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index, and the World Values Survey. Students can use GEM data to determine patterns within and across different economic development levels, geographic regions, and other groupings based on factors such as cultural orientation.

GEM’s extensive individual-level datasets can be used to teach quantitative and statistical analysis. The 2001-2008 individual-level APS dataset consists of over 1 million interviews. Students can use the data to experiment with different analysis techniques; graduate students can formulate and test hypotheses about entrepreneurship in a country, region, or across the globe.

GEM data can provide the basis for theses. Many Masters and PhD students base their theses on individual-level GEM data.

GEM understands that the availability and quality of entrepreneurship education can have a significant impact on a country’s entrepreneurial climate. Data collected as part of the National Experts Survey (NES) has long shown that entrepreneurship education and training is lacking in many countries.

To better understand this issue, extra questions were added to both the APS and the NES in 2008, and in 2009 GEM published a special report. The report addressed the following key issues:

- who receives training
- from what sources, and
- whether past training is associated with current entrepreneurial perspectives and actions.