The impact of climate entrepreneurship education in higher education institutions: a university-wide climate entrepreneurship programme

Mainstream entrepreneurship education is moving towards a broader perspective that targets all students to foster their entrepreneurial skills, regardless of their study discipline or their future employment (Varghese et al., 2016). SEE represents an evolution of entrepreneurship that differs from other concepts of entrepreneurship in that it combines both sustainable and economic goals (Ploum et al., 2017). The main objective of SEE is to provide entrepreneurs with the capabilities to seize business opportunities by considering sustainability issues (Kirby et al., 2022). Adopting sustainable behaviours is challenging because it involves cultural shifts in values and attitudes (Wyness and Jones, 2018; Gimenez-Jimenez and Harc, 2024). It also requires capabilities to deal differently with novel situations where prior experience may not apply (Deets et al., 2020; Ploum et al., 2017). SEE therefore requires the summoning of the existing entrepreneurial culture and sustainability, while interplaying with environmental, economic, and social disciplines (Rosário and Raimundo, 2023, p. 4).

O’Flaherty and Liddy (2018) take the view that there is room in SEE research for alternative pedagogical approaches, emphasising that different learning outcomes need to be matched with correspondingly different evaluation criteria and educational methods. Studies on SEE tend to focus on, or have a combined focus on, pedagogical approaches drawing heavily on modern entrepreneurship education that emphasises experimentation and inclusion (Siqueira et al., 2015; Obrecht, 2018). The literature reveals diverse models for SEE including; problem solving case studies (Contreras and Rodríguez, 2015), active innovation methods (Deets et al., 2020), institutional design of entrepreneurship curricula towards embedding sustainability (Wyness and Jones, 2018), whole of society participatory approaches (Hörisch et al., 2019), international and inclusion design features and contexts (McQuillan, 2024), transformative learning pedagogies (Klapper et al., 2024), and progression model approaches (Klucznik-Törő, 2021). These are not entirely distinct from Nabi et al.’s (2017) synthesis of pedagogical methods for teaching EE more generally involving reproduction methods, demand and participative methods, and competence building methods. However, SEEs innovative pedagogical features draw on the peculiarities and whole-society demands that need more careful attention to context, ecosystems, participatory and interdisciplinary approaches. For example, SEE problem solving case studies help create learner-centred and problem-based learning in authentic scientific, social, and technological contexts. They can help identify driving factors of sustainable entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship including leadership characteristics, challenges to start-up sustainable enterprises, and the development of business models involving expansion of the value proposition to include social, environmental, and multi-stakeholder partnerships (Krige et al., 2019; Contreras and Rodríguez, 2015). In addition, active innovation methods that may involve design thinking, experiential learning, effectuation combined with the concepts of sustainability, entrepreneurship, and innovative education (Rosário and Raimundo, 2024) can entice SE perspectives. With active innovation methods, students are encouraged to address social and environmental issues in complex business situations (Siqueira et al., 2015).

Including sustainability in the entrepreneurship curricula enables students to gain early knowledge about UN SDGs and to develop a sense of self-efficacy that they can make a difference through entrepreneurship (Hörisch et al., 2019; Sharma et al., 2024). Design thinking principles are particularly useful for SE educators to facilitate student learning in, for example, the development of social ventures, by invoking consideration of innovation, impact, and sustainability (Kickul et al., 2018). Encouraging a whole-society response through participatory approaches can help students understand the interplay of the ecosystem and the application of theory-based frameworks in a diversity of social contexts, and through learning from real life (Hörisch et al., 2019).

Studies also show inequalities that exist globally that impact on SDGs (Gyimah et al., 2023), and the OECD (2023) identifies groups of ‘Missing Entrepreneurs’ as groups who have challenges that are a barrier to entrepreneurship. Contextual and inclusion approaches to SEE that include international dimensions or non-traditional groups, support student understanding of the effects of under-representation, interculturality and intersectionality in entrepreneurship. This method may be disseminated through communities of practice turning educators into agents of collaboration and interaction (Wyness et al., 2015). Collectively, innovative pedagogical approaches for SEE in HEIs offer the potential for transformative learning; this paradigm-shifting approach enables learners to critically reflect on their existing frames of reference and beliefs and transform them into new ways of understanding and problem solving through a reframing of issues (Mezirow, 2000). SEE adopts transformative learning approaches that seem to particularly draw on the heuristic framework of Sipos et al. (2008), and the Head, Hands and Heart (HHH) framework (Klapper et al., 2024; Klapper and Fayolle, 2023). Drawing on these and other insights, Klucznik-Törő (2021) advances a new progression model approach for entrepreneurship education integrating sustainability. This model envisages student learning in phases, starting with a broad definition of entrepreneurship and a narrower definition in subsequent phases. The progression model approach encourages more active and experiential pedagogies, with subsequent phases emphasising skills development focused on behaviour (Lackéus, 2015). This model guides the current study.

A review of the SEE literature on impact reveals a broad and fragmented range of insights on impact including; impact to start a business or intention to start a business (Baber et al., 2024), transforming mindsets (Klapper and Fayolle, 2023), impact on sustainability orientation (Kuckertz and Wagner, 2010), improving ecological impacts (Rosário and Raimundo, 2024), impact of extrinsic and intrinsic rewards (Vuorio et al., 2017). Our literature review identified 57 impacts from SEE initiatives that consider individuals and their broader education and environment. The lack of a cohesive framework that can facilitate sense making and demonstrate successful student outcomes within higher education initiatives is missing, leading us to the current study.

Impact can be measured in a myriad of ways as both pedagogical and methodological issues underpin impact in terms of outcomes. For example, the impact of EE on students can be short term (e.g., subjective measures, such as measures on entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions) or long term, such as venture creation behaviour and business performance (Nabi et al., 2017). The impact on attitudes and behaviours can have positive and negative outcomes (Dickson et al., 2008; Martin et al., 2013). The nature and context of pedagogical interventions as well as contextual factors can be linked to impact outcomes (Pittaway and Cope, 2007). Nabi et al. (2017) identify the main types of impacts for EE to be firstly in a group of personal change involving attitude including; emotion and mindset, skills and knowledge, feasibility and entrepreneurial intention. These can be classified as lower-level impacts (Shinnar et al. 2014). At best, these kinds of impacts increase the chances of entrepreneurial endeavours later in a student’s life, but these outcome measures show little about how students’ progress towards starting up a venture. Nevertheless, expecting that EE meets a high rate of contemporaneous start-ups during or soon after educational inventions is perhaps unrealistic (Aadland, 2023). Entrepreneurship often occurs later in a student’s career (Marshall and Gigliotti, 2020), so attitude change may be of value (Nabi et al., 2017).

A second (higher level) impact group relate to business impact, and they include business start-up and performance and socioeconomic impacts. Aadlund (2023) attempts to address the dearth of research on longer-term impacts of EE and focuses on post-graduation activities of alumni. He addresses the question around the design of a well-working practice and the impact of the education. Like Nabi et al. (2017), Aadland (2023) stresses the need to consider the objectives of the effort in focus, taking EE goals into account, in order to understand impact. Introducing Kirkpatrick’s (1996) model for evaluating education in the context of EE, Aadland (2023) presents a framework that spans multiple levels of evaluation (reaction and learning plus behaviour and results), with clear guidelines for each level. In Aadland’s framework, the first set of objectives of EE are affective, and can include behavioural goals in terms of student activities, or can include results-based activities to help measure impact on student performance. The second set of objectives seeks to meet skills-based objectives, while the final set of objectives are start-up objectives, with measures and activities that can again be behavioural or results based. Notably, we know from Kuckertz and Wagner (2010) that sustainability orientations can wane over time as individuals get more business experience, reinforcing the value of setting sets of objectives that are both behavioural and results based.

The aim of this research is to explore the impact of CEE on student’s behaviours and results. Objectives of educational interventions need to be clear to identify appropriate outcome measures to fully explore impact (Aadland, 2023). Further, different pedagogical or educational approaches supporting such objectives might influence the learning outcomes have on students (Hagg and Gabrielsson, 2020; Klapper et al., 2024; Nabi et al., 2017). As discussed in the literature review, Aadland (2023) proposes consideration of impact based on behaviours or activities and results or performance within three evaluation levels of affective objectives. One limitation of this framework is that it is intended to give insights into long term entrepreneurial behaviours and results from registry data. Nabi et al.’s (2017) model complements the framework by emphasising levels of impact indicators, including during an educational intervention and pre/post intervention. Their model underpins pedagogy to impact, focussing on describing pedagogies being tested and appropriate levels of indicators depending on time. Thus, this paper adapts the models and frameworks of Aadland (2023) and of Nabi et al. (2017) to explore the impact of CEE on student’s behaviours and results. This helps to explore the multiple interventions that formed the CEP adding a more constructivist aspect to the study.

The evidence base is essentially that of a single case study, with the case being the CEP. Single case studies can be a person, a group, a programme, an institution or even a policy (Ellinger et al., 2005; Merriam and Tisdell, 2015). As with most case studies, the purpose of the design is to provide an in-depth, detailed account of the processes in question, rather than to definitively generalise from the specifics of those processes. Scholars underscore that case study research is methodologically eclectic and open to various approaches of data collection beneficial to address a broad range of issues and for triangulation (Merriam, 1998; Ellinger et al., 2005). To eliminate data collection bias, we used multiple sources for each training intervention in the CEP. For example, on pitch presentations we listened to the recorded pitches, but also collected questionnaire data after completion plus testimonials. It was possible to capture multiple sources of data collection from the 9 C/EE interventions that formed part of the CEP (Fig. 1).

Figure 1:

Climate entrepreneurship programme data.

The CEP’s main student intervention was an eight-step multinational Climate Start-up Pitch programme that equated to 12 educator- contact hours and 38 hours self-directed learning. This was complimented with formal and informal opportunities that helped to attract students onto the program. This approach also facilitated interventions that helped to progress students’ climate start-up ideas beyond the programme (Fig. 1). The CEP involved a number of qualitative data collection opportunities. These included online and in-person focus groups with students at the end of each international student event, review of reflective journals maintained by students travelling, review of meeting minutes with staff at the beginning and end of each intervention, student storyboards on ideation, recorded video pitches of business ideas, video recordings by students of their international experiences to share with peers, photographs with detailed narratives on climate awareness. Data was collected and stored on a password protected computer with a codebook developed to list and describe all codes used. Individuals were given codenames aligned to their gender, storyboards were photographed and coded numerically, video pitches were given code names consistent with themes. Photographs from the Climate Awareness Competition were publicly exhibited with the permission of participants, and code names that are used are aligned to gender in the presentation of the narratives.

The studied CEP education programme draws heavily on ClimateLaunchpad (https://climatelaunchpad.org/), the world’s largest green business ideas competition which is part of Climate-KIC, a large-scale initiative focused on climate innovation. The ClimateLaunchpad workbook was developed by Blazer et al. in 2020 to help support participants entering the global ClimateLaunchpad competition. The programme adopts active innovation pedagogical approaches including experiential learning to create a recorded 6-minute climate start-up pitch by a team of students. Each team must conceptualise a product and value proposition for a defined target market, undertake customer research and embed feedback, formulate a financial plan and assess climate impact as a core value proposition of the product. Tools and templates are provided throughout the programme to assist students develop their pitch presentation. The programme objectives are listed in Table 1 (below).

In this programme, the climate impact requirement emerges from the beginning. In module 1, a climate impact ‘dream’ of each founding individual is translated into a target (e.g., reduce plastic in ocean by 10% by 2024), with the potential to produce revenue. The emphasis on climate impact in subsequent modules becomes more implicit. In module 3 - Market Segmentation - the focus becomes one of meeting the needs of the customer while recognising that “ethical criteria might be part of the buying decisions of customers” In module 4 - Customer Value Proposition – students are advised that “one of the first tests of customer value proposition is emotions”. While this approach is common to all EE start-up training, this programme implicitly encourages students that opportunities might exist to create customer value with climate impact.

A full module is dedicated to the consideration of Climate Impact (Module 8). Here, students are reminded of the competitive nature of business and relatively weak position of the student’s start-up. They are encouraged to identify and assess the foregrounding of customer needs, stating that “the only truly crucial thing you really need for a business is a paying customer” (ClimateLaunchpad Workbook, p. 74). Two approaches guide the low carbon features of a product or service into the customer value proposition: firstly, highlighting to customers that the student product is much more environmentally friendly than the product of its substitutes. Secondly, highlighting to customers that the use of the student’s product by the customer is more environmentally friendly than the solution the product it replaces (for example, if a customer replaces a diesel-powered jeep with an electric one). Students are encouraged to show these differences in calculated CO2 emissions savings, or the carbon dioxide equivalent, by working through the customer value chain using each option.

In total, 410 students completed the programme over two years, involving 310 undergraduate students, 95 master’s students and 5 PhD students. 179 of these students were female and 231 were male. 94% were between 18-24 years old. 23% of students were from Engineering and Construction; 14% were from Sustainability Management Programmes; 25% were from Entrepreneurship/General business programmes; 9% were from finance and economics programmes; 19% were from product design and media programmes; and 9% were pharmaceutical students.

The programme was delivered in a variety of different ways across different faculties in TU Dublin. Many undergraduate students completed the programme as part of a mandatory assessment embedded into disciplinary and multidisciplinary entrepreneurship modules as part of degree programmes over a one semester. A small number of students, including 5 PhD students, completed the programme through extra-curricular participation supported through online seminars, regular weekly drop-ins and mentoring from TU Dublin’s GrowthHub. Other students completed the programme through block delivery over a two-day period as a co-curricular activity where multidisciplinary teams were created to complete the programme and develop the pitch.

The programme was developed and agreed as a deliverable within the Inno-EUt+ initiative. The first ‘Train the Trainer’ session for the delivering the programme was organised in October 2021 where partners including TU Dublin recruited individuals that might voluntarily be interested in the adoption of the programme within their school, faculty, or department. Within the obligations of Inno-EUt+, TU Dublin was committed to train 385+ students over two years. Cohorts included all levels of undergraduate, postgraduate and research students. This recruitment process involved extensive networking and discussions with staff across faculties, schools and innovation centres to promote the student and staff training programs.

To help raise awareness about the importance of climate start-up training and to inspire students to participate in the programme, two inspiration and education interventions were developed for students (See Table 1). Firstly, a Climate Awareness Photo Competition that was open to students and staff. An exhibition and awards night was held in January 2023 attended by over 100 students and staff, and 39 photo contributions were displayed. This provided good networking opportunities across the university faculties and different campuses. The second set of interventions was the development of workshop events during TU Dublin’s ‘Green Weeks’ in March 2022 and March 2023. 87 students attended the Green Week workshops in 2022 and 40 students attended in 2023. These events were delivered across campus and involved a ‘Founders Dream’ event in March 2022 that helped students map ideas and build team collaboration. A similar ‘Green Dragon’ event was held in March 2023 with similar objectives. These were foundational workshops that helped students to cover groundwork related to the programme and to inspire educators to consider using the programme within their modules.

To inspire and motivate students to progress on their climate start-up journey, the CEP involved a number of customised interventions that were open to all members of the Inno-EUt+ consortium across Europe. These involved international showcase events and whereby the winning teams’ from local programme pitches each semester had the opportunity to travel to present their pitch and to engage in a programme of green entrepreneurship focused events, supported by Inno-EUt+. International bootcamps and prototyping workshops were also created. Students were exposed to national opportunities, including introductions to New Frontiers, Ireland’s national entrepreneur development programme that provides a range of supports, including mentoring, masterclasses, networking opportunities, and funding, all aimed at helping participants build and grow their companies. Students with a pitch could also enter the global Climatelaunchpad competition, where they could hone their skills. Preparation for this competition was further facilitated through TU Dublin’s GrowthHub as National Lead for ClimateLaunchpad since 2022. A summary of those progression opportunities, objectives, participations and means is outlined in Table 1 below.

Climate Awareness Photo Competition - This Competition was designed with a hybrid transformative learning approach involving artistic and reflective writing methods and a ‘whole society’ approach, with guest talks and expert attendance at the exhibition. Permission was requested for further exhibition of the photos in different formats. This intervention was found to be inspirational and motivational for students to progress to other interventions (Table 2), as illustrated in quotes included in student and faculty submissions:

“This picture was taken at Sorrento Hill Park, Dalkey. It shows the obvious beauty surrounding that area, but the isolated bench and moody clouds above bring a feeling of apprehension, which can relate to the current feelings brought by climate change. The other title I wanted to give this photo was “you’re late, the show’s already begun” to also explain how, although climate change isn’t obvious in areas like this, sit long enough and it will absolutely be apparent in time. This photo would fall into the category of Community, as beauty spots bring people together and really show, at a base level, why we should ALL be caretakers of our surrounding lands. It’s our habitat as much as the wild flora and fauna; we’re one big community.” (Jane)

“Our seas, our pollution, our Fish, their habitat. I shot this video in Howth Harbour last July. I was stunned at the vivid colours of the jellyfish, then I noticed what they were swimming in. This is something that can be fixed, not just in Howth but all around our beautiful Island. Let’s do it.” (Ed)

Green Week workshops - These interventions helped students to quantify and communicate their ideas and to create diverse teams. Feedback highlights the benefit of cross-discipline engagement, “a great event. Personally, I was delighted to be involved and especially the experience of working with another discipline.” (Ade).

CEP innovative pedagogical approaches applied in these foundational interventions resulted in significant affective, skills based and start-up objectives impact, as summarised in Table 2.

The impact from the Green Week workshops emerged from the creative expression by students of their ideas, both verbally and through multimedia storyboards. Inspiring students to progress to CPSC was more successful in the second year of the programme, thanks to more carefully crafted supports by educators.

The objectives and pedagogical approaches for CSPC are detailed in Table 1 and Table 2. Several common themes emerged in the ideation process from the 38 pitches reviewed. -

Board Games: Although the development of new board games has received little attention in SEE, the usefulness of games in the broader literature on sustainable development is recognised (Miller et al., 2019; Tsai et al., 2021). Board games have been found to increase incentives for students to learn and reduce resistance to learning (Lauren et al., 2016). They foster critical thinking and problem solving on complex system concepts (Goon, 2011). A board game creates a small virtual society in which students can learn by trial and error in different scenarios and experiences within a virtual world (Tsai et al., 2021), fostering competitive and collaborative relationships (Cheng et al., 2020). In essence the development of board game concepts allowed students to imagine a complex coevolutionary world that fosters experimentation and creative thinking needed for SE, despite limited resources and experience. For undergraduate students in particular this approach was encouraged. Eight groups developed low-cost board games aimed mainly at players within their own age group or younger. ‘The Deal’ goal was to encourage environmentally friendly and sustainable daily habits of the players. The customer value proposition tended to focus on low cost and simplicity. Including education in the market, a couple of groups also highlighted learning skills of tackling problems in a multitude of ways (for example, thinking outside the box, critical thinking and problem-solving debate skills), all of which are valuable skills for challenge-based learning and SEE. Table 3 summarises one of the board games as an exemplar, highlighting how students developed their pitch. ‘House Hero’ is a board game involving a dice and categories of cards, developed to avoid harmful environmental habits and encourage more sustainable habits that can save money and reduce their carbon footprint.

Although there was some variation in the quality of the pitches, students demonstrated a baseline understanding of the customer needs and value proposition process, and this extended to the embedding of CO2 reduction opportunities in the value proposition. Pitches also included many uncertainties and assumptions. Notwithstanding, one student group reached the regional finals of ClimateLaunchPad in 2022, with further intense work and coaching offered through that forum. Findings suggest that to achieve more impact and enhance start-up intentions or behaviour, other interventions are needed that involve progression through stages (Fig. 1).

After completing the programme, students were asked to answer a seven-item questionnaire to identify if this training has had an impact on student’s capability, attitude, desires and likelihood of engaging in the business start-up process. This was based on a five-point Likert Scale from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree), in part adapted from Liñán and Chen’s 2009 questionnaire on entrepreneurial intentions (EI). Questions included “My attitude towards entrepreneurship has improved” and “I am more aware of the steps to follow to become an entrepreneur”. The overall score of 3.74 suggests a mildly positive impact from the training.

To activate progression opportunities, templates were developed to ensure consistency and transparency in scoring. Judging panels were created involving individuals from diverse backgrounds. Several techniques were applied to mitigate potential selection bias in progression opportunities. Opportunities to participate in CEP were promoted widely within TU Dublin through university-wide news forums, transversal departments, and offering staff ‘train-the-trainer’ opportunities. Pitches were scored together each semester by the panel, irrespective of degree programme or level. There were also opportunities to participate in international bootcamps and prototyping events. These events offered students the opportunity to spend time in a different geographic location, meeting entrepreneurs and other experts and working on transdisciplinary and diverse team challenge-based competitions. The bootcamps involved an intensive multi-day programme of workshops, site visits, mentoring and competitive team events. Students showed clear signs of entrepreneurial intentions upon completion of the bootcamp. They kept reflective journals during the process. -

International showcase interventions: Winning teams could attend these events. Students increased their knowledge and skills through sharing winning pitches (cases) and also gained intercultural awareness and team competencies (Table 2). The benefits were articulated by participants, “I really enjoyed this. It was great to see everybody’s ideas and meet people from different programmes.” (Carrie). Upon return these students became ambassadors for the programme, creating videos, sharing stories and experiences.

For students, the international experiences afforded the opportunity to build international connections and to work in intercultural and transdisciplinary environments. Many of the students drawn to these international opportunities were from non-traditional ethnic backgrounds and already had an international outlook. More encouragement was needed for students from more traditional Irish backgrounds to engage with these opportunities. Feedback includes recognition of the value of transdisciplinary learning and the value of diverse insights. Through these international activities, students developed SEE competencies and skills and became more vocal about their interests and intentions to start-up a business.

Authors show concern that a positive impact of SEE influencing sustainability orientation or an intention to set up a sustainable enterprise wanes once a student gains business experience (Kuckurtz and Wagner, 2010; Cheng and Adejumo, 2021) and that context is important for SEE in terms of attitudes towards setting up a sustainable enterprise (Prabowo et al., 2022; Baber et al., 2024). While scholars confirm that entrepreneurs need to embed sustainability dimensions (in our case, climate impact) together with cost and other needs into a customer value proposition drawing on real-world discovery and evidence, our experience within the training interventions shows that this approach needs multiple different types of interventions and pedagogical approaches. Students may be introduced to various concepts and tools for combining start-up and sustainability through early training, but building skills to apply in practice is a more gradual process. Sharma et al. (2024) alludes to this problem about the need for early understanding about UN SDGs and SEE among students and the importance of university support to influence attitudes and outcome expectation. Levels of impact on climate and possibly other environmental and social dimensions of a product or service need to include carefully phased measures on developing a customer value proposition at different levels (Nabi et al., 2017). The study also highlights new skills needed to develop customer value propositions responding to customer ‘pain’ through low carbon substitute or alternative products or services (Blazer et al., 2020). Aadland (2023) recognises the skills objectives in EE impact, but in addition to business modelling, customer discovery, pitching and other traditional start-up skills needed, translating sustainability impact such as calculating CO2 reductions for a customer value proposition needs a distinctive skillset on gathering and interpreting complex data that is not emphasised in the literature. Not only students but SEE educators may need expert training and support based on these findings.

Promoting CEP across different faculties, departments and programmes within TU Dublin allowed some interesting findings to emerge by comparing and evaluating the 8 iterations of the CSPC over the two-year period. CSPC was the core component of the climate entrepreneurship programme and was an intervention that was delivered in different ways to different groups of students whether undergraduate/postgraduate/research, through mandatory and voluntary options and through classroom and hybrid forms of delivery. The development of board game products was an innovative approach, primarily for the simplicity rather than for technological sophistication. It afforded students earlier in their degree programmes the ability to engage in more real-life learning and to reduce the number of assumptions and guesswork needed for the pitch. With board games, peers could be relied on for customer discovery, products are developed as learning tools that complements their current curricula, materials involved in the manufacture are kept to a minimum and are low tech. Furthermore, products can progress easily to proof of concept and for basic prototyping, as they are mainly paper and cardboard based in real-world examples. Paradoxically, the beachhead markets for such products (mainly educational institutions and local adolescents) are likely too small to motivate commercial start-up beyond prototyping, but the potential to conceptualise the product offers a rich learning experience embedding climate impact and start-up learning along multiple dimensions of the CEP. The board game approach benefits earlier students with very limited real-world enterprise knowledge and experience and still some years away from starting a career.

The literature on SEE does not address the importance of the features of the new product or service for more impactful learning experiences at different levels, thus this study offers insight in context. Paradoxically, even if board games can translate to a good quality climate start-up pitch for relatively inexperienced students, it would be unlikely to commercialise. Yet it is impactful even if meeting start-up objectives for those students in the short term is very unlikely (Marshall and Gigliotti, 2020; Aadland, 2023, Nabi et al., 2017). Studies have drawn on paradoxical thinking and paradox theory in sustainable entrepreneurship (Blok, 2018) and more often for social entrepreneurship (Weller and Ran, 2020; Smith et al., 2012). The emerging literature on SEE does not highlight the importance of paradox in pedagogy (Rosário and Raimundo, 2024). Thus, the recognition of a simplicity paradox in ideation within SEE is new. Paradox as “contradictory yet interrelated elements that seem logical in isolation but absurd and irrational when appearing simultaneously” (Lewis, 2000, p. 760) is a popular approach for theorising across various business domains such as managerial cognition (Miron-Spektor et al., 2018) and practice theory (Knight and Paroutis, 2017). For university-wide SEE programs that are multi/transdisciplinary, drawing on different levels of educational and EE experience, educators should be able to improve impact by drawing on this simplicity paradox for guiding student ideation development.

There are recognised challenges for bringing sustainability and EE together beyond business faculties (Jones et al. 2013; Wyness and Jones, 2019). CEP is an example of a programme developed with the flexibility to work as a mandatory or voluntary programme with different delivery formats and options across different domains. This facilitated delivery at different educational levels, within different faculties, and even among multi- and trans- disciplinary groups. The findings show how impactful international, intercultural and transdisciplinary teams are for inspiring students and even fostering university-wide climate enterprise intentions. New studies support the importance of international and intercultural experiences in SEE to bridge local and international entrepreneurial ecosystems crucial to maintaining continuity and engagement amid global disruptions (Laine et al., 2024). Our study shows this to be especially evident in the international intervention opportunities that involve multi-day intensive whole-society approaches. In addition, the impact of foundational interventions to prepare students and to inspire students into the CSPC is also a novel insight not heretofore addressed in the SEE impact literature.