Resumen de Engineering students as innovation facilitators for enterprises
This paper addresses the role that Engineering Master Students may play in contributing to the development of innovation forenterprises. Based on a formalized tripartite cooperation between a student, an enterprise and a Danish university, the programmecombines traditional academic curricula with a mentor company. Drawing on the concepts of Mode 2 knowledge production andknowledge governance the circumstances under which these innovations can take place are described and analysed. The empiricalmaterial is taken from a longitudinal study (2009-2011) of the master programme; the study combines qualitative and quantitativeapproaches. Both students and enterprises assess the master programme very positively and more than half of the companiesconfirmed that the students have contributed to innovation processes. The analysis shows how formal and informal governancemechanisms need to complement each other in order to enable a successful progression for all the parties involved. However thestudy also underlines that the master programme faces challenges which are usually not part of engineering curricula, for example,improving students’ social and communication competences and autonomy.
