Designing an Entrepreneurial University: How HOGENT Combined HEInnovate with a Design Science Approach

This case study examines how HOGENT, one of the largest Universities of Applied Sciences and Arts in Flanders (Belgium), built entrepreneurial capacity across the whole institution. The work drew on two things, used side by side. HEInnovate helped HOGENT read where it stood on entrepreneurship and provided a shared frame of reference for it. Design Science Research, a method for designing practical solutions and improving them in cycles, gave the institution a disciplined way to turn that assessment into concrete change. Between 2019 and 2024 the two shaped the redesign of the Centre for Entrepreneurship, known today as the HOGENT E-Lab. This case study follows that redesign, sets out the six design principles it produced and the EntreDesign Canvas that grew from the same way of working, and draws out what the experience suggests for other institutions.