Implementing outward-bound academic entrepreneurship in the human sciences

Abstract

Many universities today acknowledge that besides focusing on teaching, learning and research, they should also be involved in “service to the community”. Four questions arise in this regard: What exactly does this service to the community entail? How, within what framework, and under what conditions should this service be rendered? What criteria determine whether an activity qualifies as service to the community? In what type of structure should such outward-bound activities be embedded? Different universities — even different faculties within the same university — have answered these questions in different ways. The human sciences in particular struggle
to see how they can use their research to contribute actively to a better world outside the university as well as how they can be rewarded for this both by their university and by the organisations they assist. Focusing on  outward-bound academic entrepreneurship, this paper will attempt to answer the first three questions raised above and to show that there are in fact many opportunities for the humanities to be involved in academic entrepreneurship are plentifold.