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The Student Entrepreneur Mentorship Handbook and Canvas constitute a guide for entrepreneurship programme leaders to establish simple but effective mentoring programmes in Higher Education Institutes. The Mentor Manifesto is geared towards the mentors themselves, offering best practice guidelines to build effective and trust-based mentor relationships. The Mentor Canvas is designed for use in mentoring sessions, specifically student entrepreneur mentoring sessions.

This Handbook and Canvas were developed through consultation with Programme Leaders at leading entrepreneur programmes in Europe and the United States, including student entrepreneur programmes in university settings. Additionally, interviews were held with Programme Leaders in emerging ecosystems, who provided excellent insight into the unique challenges of establishing an effective mentor programme with limited resources.

Primarily, guidance was drawn from the startup ecosystem, where mentoring programmes are a well-established norm, and adapted for student entrepreneurship in the Higher Education Setting.

The findings of this work were presented in a virtual training and feedback session in August 2022. Breakout rooms following each segment allowed programme leaders in HEIs to provide feedback on the content, which was addressed in V1.0 of the Handbook and Canvas, presented here.