Boosting regional innovation through co-creation for sustainable entrepreneurship : stakeholders' perspective on the start for future initiative

Universities support regional innovation and sustainable development through research-based partnerships with local ecosystems, creating new business models addressing global and local societal challenges. In this shift towards a sustainable entrepreneurial university, the Start for Future (SFF) international alliance promotes entrepreneurial and innovation culture across Europe, through entrepreneurship tertiary education and business development. This qualitative case study investigates the characteristics and implications of stakeholder involvement in a cross-European context (with the SFF project as the object of investigation) including contribution to regional development and innovation. Results show the SFF's significant potential for developing trained human capital acting entrepreneurially in an innovative and sustainable perspective, through a collaborative, transnational, cross-sectoral, and interdisciplinary community of engaged partners. Practical and policy implications include the need to cultivate long-term, bottom-up relationships among partners, both regionally and internationally, and to establish institutional long-term strategies to consolidate the network over time and ensure effective contributions from all.