GSOM SPbU has published the national report “Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students’ Survey. Russia 2018” (GUESSS), which provides a comprehensive review of the entrepreneurial potential of students from Russian universities.

 

Particular attention is paid to issues of Russian students’ career choice intentions, attitude towards entrepreneurship, assessment of university and national environment, influence of family on the emergence of entrepreneurial intentions, and features of potential and active entrepreneurs’ business. In addition, the results are compared with international student sample.

Russia already participates in this project for the fourth time (since 2011). Long-term involvement provides opportunity to track the dynamics of factors that contribute to the development of students’ entrepreneurial spirit, as well as changes in entrepreneurial activity in the national context.

Based on a survey of more than 2800 students from 14 universities all over the country, the following trends were identified:

• Immediately after graduation, 74% of students plan to work as employees, 9% of students as entrepreneurs.
• About 50% of students intend to become entrepreneurs in 5 years after graduation that is 15% higher than in the international sample.
• In Russia, the share of potential entrepreneurs (i. e., those who already try to start their own business) corresponds to the international sample and makes up 30% while the share of active entrepreneurs (i. e., those who already run their own business) reaches almost 7%, which is more than 4% lower compared to the international sample.
• 63% of students did not attend any course on entrepreneurship at all which is 17% higher than the rate in the international sample.
• 38% of students plan to start their business alone, which is almost twice higher compared to this indicator in 2016; the share of students who plan to establish a company together with a partner almost has not changed and stands at 31%.
• There are gender differences: the share of those wishing to become entrepreneurs right after the graduation is higher among men (13% versus 7% of women), but 5 years later the gap narrows down (54% versus 49%).
• About 5% of students find entrepreneurial career attractive in terms of the balance of advantages and disadvantages, opportunities and experienced sense of satisfaction.
• In Russia, career as an entrepreneur is assessed by students and people in their environment in a more positive way compared to the international sample.

More details about the results of both global and national studies can be found here.

 

For information:

International research project Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students’ Survey (GUESSS) has been held every two years since 2003. In 2018 the data collection was conducted for the 8th time. More than 3,000 universities from 54 countries took part in it and generated over 208,000 completed responses, which are all new record numbers. The GUESSS Russian team was involved in the project for the 4th time. Data collection was carried out from September till December 2018, and students from 14 Russian universities took part in the study. Russia ranked 20th out of 54 countries by the number of students’ responses.