Boundary crossing ahead: perspectives of entrepreneurship by sustainability educators in Higher Education

The study provides a novel investigation of university sustainability educators and evaluates their knowledge and perspectives of entrepreneurship through the theoretical lens of communities of practice. This study offers key insights into how entrepreneurial education can positively impact upon sustainability educators behaviours and practices. This study explores, through a UK and European semi-structured survey of sustainability educators, three key research questions. Firstly, how an entrepreneurial or an enterprising approach contributes to solving sustainability problems? Secondly, the extent to which sustainability education programmes in universities are making reference to enterprise/entrepreneurship? The study found that sustainability educators had mixed, but predominantly negative or absent, attitudes towards entrepreneurship and its perceived value towards sustainability. The results indicate that far greater collaboration and interaction is required between the disciplines to support this evolution to enhance their potential to collaborate and exchange best practice. Thus the University sectors strategic decision makers need to take responsibility for developing and encouraging such conversations