The entrepreneurial university in the digital era: looking into teaching challenges and new higher education trends

The World Wide Web has transformed primary university IT functions, but the digital economy is redefining the rules of the game in higher education. The aging phenomenon claims long-life training for developing digital competencies required in current workplaces. Nowadays, COVID-19 pandemic also represented an unprecedented challenge for education that affects more than 1.5 billion students that are no longer able to go to school physically. Moreover, the new students’ generations have born in an on-line era and demand always-on digital access, more profound and more flexible learning experience. Inspired by these trends, we discuss how entrepreneurial universities (e.g., organizations with an entrepreneurial and innovative orientation) are managing new digital trends for being competitive in both traditional and digital higher education market. A provocative discussion about the internal and external challenges of entrepreneurial universities, an extended research agenda, and several implications for multiple stakeholders emerged from this chapter.