Small Doses of Entrepreneurial Content (SDEC) to Foster Entrepreneurial Competencies in Biotechnology Engineering

Entrepreneurial universities emphasize teaching, research, and community outreach, with entrepreneurial education playing a vital role in fostering an entrepreneurial culture and achieving social and economic impact. While entrepreneurial education is well-established in business programs, its integration into non-business disciplines, such as engineering, presents unique challenges, including aligning entrepreneurial content with technical curricula and measuring outcomes effectively. This study examines the impact of delivering Small Doses of Entrepreneurial Content (SDEC) on senior biotechnology students' key entrepreneurial competencies-decision-making, resilience, and opportunity recognition. The SDEC was integrated into a course through a “Learning Kit” comprising lectures, workshops, entrepreneurial talks, and project evaluations. Using a pre-and post-intervention design with validated scales and statistical analyses, the study revealed significant gains in specific decision-making and opportunity recognition skills, particularly among students with prior entrepreneurial exposure. This research contributes to the literature by addressing the challenges of designing entrepreneurial education in non-business disciplines and offering a scalable, transversal approach that complements technical curricula. The findings underscore the potential for embedding entrepreneurial education across diverse disciplines and provide a practical reference for educators seeking to implement such interventions effectively.