WIP: Belonging Matters: Exploring Student Engagement in Innovation Ecosystems

This innovative practice WIP paper describes how a sense of belonging is a crucial element in closing the participation gap in Innovation Competitions and Programs (ICPs) among underrepresented students. Apart from fostering student innovations and career readiness, ICPs, such as hackathons, startup incubator competitions, and customer discovery labs, are essential to college entrepreneurship ecosystems. However, there is a participation gap in ICPs among traditionally underrepresented students (e.g., students identifying as women, ethnically or racially diverse, low socio-economic status, or individuals with disabilities) compared with their counterparts. In addition, employers now look for distinctive innovation-focused skills on resumes and consider ICPs as a differentiating attribute. Therefore, low ICP participation among underrepresented students places them at a disadvantage regarding their career development. Using an interview research methodology, this paper investigates two research questions: (i) what are the dimensions of belonging in the context of ICPs? (ii) how does belonging manifest in various student groups?