Baruah, Bidyut Jyoti orcid.org/0000-0002-4733-6156, Ward, Anthony Edward orcid.org/0000-0002-6100-8845, Gbadebo, Adeyosola Adekunle et al. (1 more author) (2018) Addressing the skills gap for facilitating renewable energy entrepreneurship- an analysis of the wind energy sector. In: Majan International Conference. MIC 2018. , Muscat (Oman)
Abstract
With the rising global energy issues regarding sustainability, environmental degradation and fossil fuel exhaustion, several countries are now focusing on finding alternative sustainable solutions. At the current state, there are no clear alternatives other than renewable energy sources which have recently led to the increase of entrepreneurial businesses primarily dealing with the advancement and uptake of renewable energy technologies. However, being an under-researched area, there is no clarity on the skills associated with the business models of the renewable energy sector. What are the current trends in terms of the interpersonal, professional and core technical skills that employers are actively seeking in this sector? How will nascent entrepreneurs address the skills gap or subject specific knowledge challenges? Using content analysis, this study reviews online job advertisements to shed some light on the skills distribution in management and technical-oriented roles in the renewable job sector. The study found management-oriented roles to have a more widespread skills parameter in the personal skills category as compared to technical-oriented roles. The professional and technical skills distribution shows technical-oriented jobs seeking a higher rate of subject-specific skills or knowledge than management-oriented roles. The study also found a lack of choices for undergraduate degrees on renewable energy when compared with postgraduate degree choices in the UK. This raises several questions like whether such gaps in subject choices at universities are limiting the entrepreneurial prospects among students. Are these factors fuelling the technical skills deficit currently witnessed in the renewable energy job sector? Perhaps, there is a need for universities to revisit their business and programme design models to investigate whether the undergraduate programmes are being too generic for the 21st century entrepreneurial market?
Metadata
Item Type: | Proceedings Paper |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 IEEE. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details |
Keywords: | Renewable energy, Entrepreneurship, Skills gap, Wind energy sector, Personal skill, Technical skill |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Electronic Engineering (York) |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 05 Jul 2018 09:30 |
Last Modified: | 02 Apr 2025 23:32 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1109/MINTC.2018.8363156 |
Status: | Published |
Identification Number: | 10.1109/MINTC.2018.8363156 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:132826 |
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