What problem does CONNECT-ED solve?
EiRs are frequently assigned to specific departments or schools within a university or college, often working independently and unaware of each other's efforts even within the same institution, leading to entrepreneurial isolation and several other issues.This leads to:
Isolation
EiRs lack the ability to connect and share with those working across different schools, this also limits what can be offered to beneficiaries as impact is potentially limited to just one EiR’s capabilities and capacity.
Duplication
Without knowing what other EiRs are doing, efforts in engagement, projects, resource building and systems change, risk being uncoordinated and inefficient at a minimum.
Sub optimum impact
With little shared best practice, the support offered by EiRs can vary and the energies and resources that go into designing and delivering an approach may end up duplicated/having sub optimal impact.
We also observe geographic gaps in provision and a general lack of diversity of role models in the population of EiRs with more, and more representative, role models and advisors needed in terms of age, gender, ethnicity and lived experience/social mobility. This lack of diversity is a barrier to inspiring more individuals to consider founding as a potential career path.
