Increasing the amount and quality of academic entrepreneurship is a key challenge in Finland. One of the reasons for the lack of success in this field lies in the difference between the competence requirements of an entrepreneur and the didactic methods used in higher education. The entrepreneurial skills are holistic, psychologically individually-oriented and are best acquired via personal experiences. The teaching is often focused on science-area -based substance skills and uses traditional lecturing methods. This does not develop the entrepreneurial motivation or required self-image. Laurea university of applied sciences has adopted a Learning-by-developing (LbD)–pedagogical approach as its key strategy, and uses it as the basis of entrepreneurial learning environments. LbB puts the learner and the learning into the center of a curriculum. It is based on the idea that learning is a pragmatic and abductive process. The five corner stones of LbD are authentical learning, personal experience, creativity, investigative approach and partnership. “Authenticity” means that all the learning-situations are simultaneously real-life developing situations. Thus in the beginning of a project no participant has a clear picture of the outcomes or the working procedures. “Partnership” is required due to current networked way-of-working - no expert is fully independent. “Experiencing” refers to every student’s personal learning experience and taking the responsibility of her own work and learning. “Investigative approach” means that the development projects are based on scientific research methods and results. “Creativity” is the backbone of development; the goal is to create new answers to problems faced. LbD-approach has been used on two entrepreneurial learning environments: “innovation-based service entrepreneurship” –theme of 85 ECTS-credits and a 17-days intensive “entrepreneurial boot camp”. In the camp the students created their own business plans in Cambridge with the support of local business and academic community. The theme is a wider concept where the students also implement their plans either in their own companies or in existing firms. There have been 52 bachelor-level students involved in these programmes building their own real-life business plans. Their learning has been supported by the local business and academic networks. The learning outcomes have been evaluated based on the business administration curriculum, i.e. the students have acquired the same substance competencies but via a different process.

The results of using LbD-type of learning environments have been very positive. There are already several operational businesses. The students have also acquired a very positive entrepreneurial experience and consider entrepreneurship as a likely career choice. According to students’ perception they have learned considerable amount of entrepreneurial skills, and used LbD-methods for learning. The results support the development of similar learning environments as well as using LbD as a pedagogic approach to learn entrepreneurship.