Name: Kiranjeet Kaur & Navdeep Kaur
Country: India

Year: 2025
Volume: Volume-10, Issue-2 (July-December)
Page Number: 153-162
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18068616

ABSTRACT
Background: Universities are increasingly expected to function as engines of entrepreneurship by fostering innovation, start-up creation, and entrepreneurial mindsets among students through structured support systems such as entrepreneurship education, incubation centres, mentorship, and industry linkages. In Punjab, despite growing institutional investments in entrepreneurial infrastructure, there is limited empirical evidence on how effectively these support systems are
communicated to students and how aware students are of the opportunities available to them.

Aim/Objectives: The primary aim of the study is to examine students’ awareness of start-up support systems provided by universities in Punjab and to assess how effectively educational institutions contribute to building a start-up culture from the students’ perspective. The study specifically seeks to evaluate awareness of institutional resources such as incubation centres, seed funding, mentorship programmes, entrepreneurship events, and external collaborations.

Methodology: The study adopts a quantitative, cross-sectional research design. Primary data were collected from 392 undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral students from selected public and private universities in Punjab using a structured and validated questionnaire. A five-point Likert scale was employed, and the data were analysed using descriptive statistics, correlation, and regression analysis with the help of SPSS (Version 26).

Results: The findings indicate that students exhibit a moderate to high level of awareness of start-up support systems, particularly regarding incubation centres, entrepreneurship events, and idea-pitching platforms. However, relatively lower awareness was observed in areas related to mentorship accessibility and participation in awareness sessions. The results further reveal a strong and statistically significant positive relationship between students’ awareness of start-up support systems and their entrepreneurial intentions.

Conclusion: The study concludes that students’ awareness of institutional start-up support systems is a critical enabling factor in translating university resources into entrepreneurial intentions. Universities can effectively act as engines of entrepreneurship only when entrepreneurial initiatives are not only available but are also clearly visible, accessible, and aligned with students’ aspirations. Strengthening
awareness-building and engagement strategies is therefore essential for fostering a vibrant start-up culture in Punjab.

Keywords: Entrepreneurial universities; Start-up support systems; Student awareness; Entrepreneurial intentions; Higher education in Punjab