- Stimulating entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial skills among those educated at the University of Agder, while helping more people with university education to identify opportunities and have the skills to pursue them by establishing their own businesses within their areas of competence and specialization.
- Conducting world class entrepreneurship research in relevant and updated areas, while positioning UiA as one of Norway’s top centres of expertise in the field.
- Supporting the entrepreneurial eco-system through stimulating and relevant programs based on cooperation between industry, entrepreneurs, funding agencies and the university; as well as the facilitation of entrepreneurial network building at the regional, national and international levels.
Centre for entrepreneurship was established in 2005 as a centre for excellence in entrepreneurship education.
UiA's Centre for Entrepreneurship (SfE) is responsible for entrepreneurship education of around 500 students annually, which participate in 8 different programs, most prominent of which are its entrepreneurship and Internationalization labs, run in collaboration with Innovation Norway. These programs allow the SfE to both facilitate and encourage entrepreneurship among students, as well as to engage in productive dialogue with entrepreneurs in the region. Some indicators of its success may be found in both the number of its graduates that participate in national entrepreneurship competitions, and the top prizes they have been winning.
Parallel to its constructive role in facilitating dialogue between academia and business in the Southern region of Norway, the SfE’s staff is engaged quality research in entrepreneurship-related research, with primary focus on networks, internationalization and ICT-enabled growth of small and medium sized firms. This includes research projects funded by the Nordic Innovation Centre, EU etc.