The purpose of this paper is to discuss the role of universities in fostering and promoting entrepreneurship in Finland. In particular it seeks to examine the university-entrepreneurship relationship: its nature and how universities are addressing the entrepreneurship agenda.

The paper is based on a large study of Finnish universities and their relation to entrepreneurship, its promotion and incorporating university-based enterprise education. The study was a one-year-project carried out in 2004 and funded by the Finnish Ministry of Education. The empirical data were collected in March-August 2004 via an internet survey and by conducting interviews in all of the 21 Finnish universities.

The study shows that within all Finnish universities there are as yet untapped resources and opportunities in terms of entrepreneurship. However it is far from clear if there is one model which will increasingly drive entrepreneurial development within Finnish universities or whether a more ad hoc and somewhat ambiguous conceptual understanding will characterise developments.