Keynote speakers

Professor Emeritus Andy Penaluna is the former Director of the International Institute for Creative Entrepreneurial Development (IICED), where two of EU’s ten depth case studies that directly informed the development of the EU Joint Research Centre’s 2016 EntreComp Framework originated.

In the UK he chairs the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education’s work on enterprise and entrepreneurship, and is also an academic advisor to AdvanceHE, the UK’s national body for educator development and support. He has received many accolades from both education and business, with one national entrepreneur’s association taking his case to government as it ‘punched well above its weight’. He has also received a Queens Award for Enterprise Promotion, presented by her Majesty Queen Elizabeth in Buckingham Palace.

In other entrepreneurial work, Andy was one of the OECD/EU HEInnovate’s EPIC assessment of entrepreneurial learning project’s lead academics and, supported the development policy and practice for 42 countries as an advisor to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. He also supervised research projects, including a year’s sabbatical undertaken by the UN’s Chief of Entrepreneurship.

As a business owner and academic, Andy is keen to support all educators. At home in Wales, he has helped to develop new national school curriculum that has enterprise as one of its four central purposes.

Mats Westerberg is professor of entrepreneurship and innovation at Luleå University of Technology in north Sweden. He has worked with the intersection of entrepreneurship and education for more than 15 years. Currently he is involved in a pan-European teach-the-teacher program on entrepreneurship for educators of any discipline, an international research and training project on applying entrepreneurship to any study discipline. He also works in a project aimed at making municipal employees (including basic education) more innovative. In the Keynote I will draw on my collected experience and mainly on the developments in the field the last years to paint a picture of how I see the role of entrepreneurship in mainstream education.

Dr. Kirsi Peura works as senior advisor at the University of Turku development services, and she is responsible for the coordination of the implementation of the Entrepreneurial University Strategy at the University of Turku. Kirsi is also a post-doctoral researcher at Turku School of Economics focused on studying academic entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial university, entrepreneurship education, agency and identities. She has some 20 years of experience in developing and managing various national and international development projects in entrepreneurship. Currently, her work is focused on assessment and development of institution’s entrepreneurial and innovation capacity, including entrepreneurship education as a joint effort of the university administration and the faculties in developing enterprising individuals across the whole institution. Kirsi is also a director of a national higher education spearhead project that has developed electronic resources and recommendations for universities to help integrate learning acquired outside the formal education into university degrees. Kirsi is a board member of the Scientific Association for Entrepreneurship Education that promotes multidisciplinary research and practice of entrepreneurship and enterprise education.