Boosting the evolution toward the Entrepreneurial University in the Regional Ecosystem: The role of the Entrepreneurial Learning Centre

The paper presents the conceptual model of an entrepreneurial learning centre as initiative to fertilize the emerging of the knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship and the larger diffusion of an entrepreneurial culture in the regions. Framed in the scientific and institutional debate on the intelligent growth of the territories in the knowledge economy, the study debates the meaning of the entrepreneurship as knowledge-intensive process resulting from the application of the key enabling technologies to answer at the current societal challenges. Due at the knowledge intensive nature of those technologies as well as at complex dynamics emerging in the market, the entrepreneurship results more and more a learning processes; this is the reason why a learning strategy is required. Inspired by this debate and also by the emerging issue of the entrepreneurial universities, the entrepreneurial learning centre is conceived as a dynamic environment focused on the knowledge triangle, characterized by a learning strategy based on anticipatory and action learning approaches and the presence of a wide large community of regional stakeholders. Finally these characteristics contribute to the achievement of the regional smart specialization strategy.