Opportunities to Strengthen Entrepreneurial Training in Undergraduate Biology Education

Despite the need for entrepreneurial education in the biosciences, many undergraduate biology curricula do not include entrepreneurial opportunities. Here, we describe a network of 16 undergraduate biology faculty who came together to share best practices and assess student needs in bioscience entrepreneurship education. The faculty-led strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis provides insight from this network, who collectively represent 14 institutions across 12 states. The exploratory needs assessment survey collected data from 211 student respondents regarding their interest in biosciences entrepreneurship. This survey highlights similarities and differences in entrepreneurial interest and perspectives across student race and gender identities. Together, this preliminary study of bioscience entrepreneurship education provides a framework for undergraduate biology educators to inform entrepreneurial education in the classroom.