Entrepreneurial education – An exploration of a project that evaluates a Matchmaking Event in an Internship course

Entrepreneurial education (EE) is about developing students’ ability to create economic, social, or cultural value. Open innovation is a paradigm that underscores that companies can and should utilize a combination of both external and internal ideas to develop their product, services and technology. Under the banner of the engaged university model, higher education institutions seek to establish closer ties with external stakeholders to enhance the work-life relevance of academic programs. Internship programs can foster student growth personally and professionally. This paper highlights and reinforces the strong connection between project management and open innovation collaboration in entrepreneurial education. The study employs two theoretical frameworks to evaluate an internship Matchmaking event: (1) Entrepreneurial education (EE) anchored in experiential learning; and (2) Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Project management, and Technological perspectives. An internship is an EE learning conception, regarded invaluable in higher education. The study’s objective is to provide insight into students’ perceptions of an internship Matchmaking event integrated into the course MOØ240 at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences. We conducted an exploratory qualitative study, administering a five-item open-ended questionnaire immediately after the event. Reflexive thematic analysis of the 28 textual responses reveals three themes that shed light on students’ experiences of the rapid company - student matching process. The course MOØ240 Innovation and Entrepreneurship in practice in a regional context, comprise students from three master programs and are required to undertake 10 weeks fulltime internship linked to an innovation project in a company. Participants, students and organizations, expressed distinctly positive view of their experiences at the Matchmaking event. The three main findings in this study are: (1) Structure: Participants offered a positive appraisal of the Matchmaking events rigorous organization, the effectiveness of company pitches and the seamless operation of the digital platform; (2) Relevance: Students highlighted the opportunity to engage and interact with a diverse array of industries and entrepreneurial sectors beyond the traditional corporate environments; and; (3) Time pressure: Time-management emerged as the principal limitation during the networking sessions, students consequently recommended a more formalised rotation system. External collaboration organized by project management and EE throughout an internship course encapsulates opportunities for experiential learning, networking, personal and professional development, in line with the engaged university model. Even though, this study adds new insights into the internship Matchmaking scholarly literature, there is however a need for further empirical examination.