The Entrepreneurial Ecosystem and the role of universities to activating it, Sulaymaniyah Governorate as a case study

Abstract

The entrepreneurship ecosystem is a special system of relevant stakeholders that support and contribute directly or indirectly to assist entrepreneurs to launch their businesses and projects. Human capital is one of the essential components of the entrepreneurs' ecosystem on which the success of entrepreneurship depends. This research investigated the importance of the entrepreneurship ecosystem and the role of universities in activating it. Unemployment is one of the biggest a growing challenges for Iraq and the Kurdistan Region in light of the large growth rate of the population and the slow growth of the economy, which has created countless problems. This challenge must be faced by all possible means. Activating the entrepreneurship ecosystem is a proven and successful method for the natural birth and growth of businesses and projects, creating job opportunities, and reducing unemployment. The province of Sulaymaniyah was chosen as the limits of the spatial research and the temporal boundary is between the beginning of the first month and until the sixth month of 2021 within the period of the outbreak of the Covid19 epidemic. The research population is university graduates in recent years, and the research sample was 92 university graduates from various disciplines, of both sexes, and within one age category (23-26 years). The research found that most university graduates have some basic skills for business management, but before establishing their businesses, they need additional doses of skills designed through the curricula established in universities, and there were no statistically significant differences due to the gender variable in the level of their entrepreneurial abilities. It is expected that the conclusions and recommendations reached by this research will be a reference for university curricula and syllabus designers, decision-makers, and researchers for solutions to the unemployment crisis in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region.