Project activity centers as an element of the university entrepreneurship ecosystem

The authors of the article consider the mechanisms of development and institutional consolidation of students and academic staff project activities in order to form an entrepreneurship ecosystem. The institutional design of project activities in the form of special units sets the tone for serious transformations both within the university and in the context of the university's integration with the external environment. The objective value of specialized units in the university structure that accumulate the business processes of initiation and development of project activity among students and employees, including cooperation with the external socio-economic field, is confirmed in a number of scientific papers on the construction of an entrepreneurial ecosystem of the university.The authors describe their own trajectory of project activity institutionalization through the creation of a specialized unit. This is the Center of Project Activity (on the example of a regional reference university), which allows to assemble the key details of the university's entrepreneurial ecosystem into a configuration that ensures continuous interaction between internal elements and the external environment with the receipt of demanded projects at the output. The attempts of universities implementing entrepreneurial transformation using the ecosystem concept demonstrate the need for special institutions in their structure, which act as a resource center for embedding the university into the entrepreneurial ecosystem. The experience of project activity institutionalization includes both a mechanism for forming a division and building appropriate business processes around it and meaningful functional elements. The main barriers during the creation and development of the unit are presented. They can be taken into account when initiating the idea of creating appropriate centers for practice replication.

entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship ecosystem, project activity, project activity center, youth entrepreneurship, technological entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial university