Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students' Survey (GUESSS)

The presented GUESSS-Russia national report is a multifaceted inquiry into entrepreneurial potential of Russian university students. It pays special attention to the coverage of their career preferences, attitudes towards entrepreneurship, assessment of university and national environment, influence of family on the development of entrepreneurial intentions, characteristics of active entrepreneurship.

Based on a survey of more than 4,600 students from universities across Russia, the following trends were identified:

• Right after graduation, 59,6% of students see the start of their career paths as employees, while almost 20% of students see it as entrepreneurs;
• About 41,5% of students want to become entrepreneurs five years after the graduation, which is almost 11,5% more than in the international sample;
• In Russia, the share of potential entrepreneurs (i.e. those who are already trying to start their own business) among students is 20%, which is lower than the share in the international sample – 25,7%.
• The share of active entrepreneurs (i.e. those who are already running their own business) reaches 12%, which is slightly higher than in the international sample;
• 66,1% of students had no entrepreneurship courses at all, which is higher than the share in the international sample – 58,8%;
• About 33% of students come from entrepreneurial families, and the proportion of student entrepreneurs with at least one parent running their own business is 49% compared to 38% of students from non-entrepreneurial families;
• In Russia, there is a tendency to reduce the proportion of students considering a career as an entrepreneur both immediately after graduation and 5 years after graduation compared to 2021 (a decrease of 2.6% and 0.7%, respectively), which reflects the situation in the international sample.

Russian Report 2023 contains important results on various aspects of student entrepreneurship development and provides a comparison with the international sample, which will be of interest to a wide range of readers.

Read the full report here: GUESSS 2023 (PDF, 1.20 Mb) 

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