Unit rationale, description and aim
Public health entrepreneurship is an important field, driven by the desire of public health practitioners to be innovative and action oriented in a complex and rapidly evolving health landscape. Commercial determinants of health and advances in artificial intelligence demand that public health graduates are agile practitioners, capable of applying entrepreneurial thinking across sectors, departments, and in private and public enterprises. Developing entrepreneurial skills can assist in addressing current and future public health challenges. This unit challenges students to develop entrepreneurial mindsets, skills, and strategies that are relevant to modern workplaces and critical for careers in public health—whether as business innovators or within health organisations. Students will gain complementary non-technical capabilities highly valued by employers, including business acumen, strategic planning, effective communication, and advanced interpersonal skills. Through practical exploration of social enterprise development, students will learn how to create a business plan and design a marketing strategy that leverages diverse media channels. The unit fosters confidence and capability to adopt entrepreneurial approaches as innovative employees in any setting. The aim of this unit is to equip students with the tools and perspectives needed to integrate entrepreneurial thinking into public health practice.
Campus offering
No unit offerings are currently available for this unit.Learning outcomes
To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.
Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.
Explore the graduate capabilities.
Apply a social entrepreneurship model to propose a...
Learning Outcome 01
Critique the diverse roles public health practitio...
Learning Outcome 02
Design and implement strategies that leverage mult...
Learning Outcome 03
Critically evaluate and integrate advanced small b...
Learning Outcome 04
Content
Topics will include:
Entrepreneurship and innovation
· Entrepreneurship theories: economic, psychological, sociological, anthropological, opportunity and resource-based
· Developing an entrepreneurial mindset
· Research, development, and marketing
· Solution-focused approaches and ‘start-ups’
· Social entrepreneurship in focus (social enterprise models, creating social and ethical change, social impact, sustainability)
· Introduction to developing a professional identity/brand
· Securing partnerships and investment (e.g. innovative ways to secure funding).
Media skills
· Communicating science to stakeholders
· Digital marketing (email, websites, social media, mobile technologies, search engines)
· Building a competitive edge
· Writing for media
Small business skills
· Developing a business plan for a small business that brings together entrepreneurship, marketing and client service with budgeting and book-keeping, project, and time management
· Private practice and consulting logistics
· Leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to mimic real-world case scenarios like budgeting for a community health project, forecasting demand, and optimizing resource allocation.
· Use AI to practice decision-making in a risk-free environment and receive instant feedback.
Assessment strategy and rationale
There will be three assessment tasks combining written, oral, and group activities. The assessment strategy allows students to progressively develop their knowledge and skills by first understanding relevant theories and their application to solving public health challenges with entrepreneurial business approaches, then applying this knowledge to the development of a marketing plan using multi-media for a public health campaign, and finally a syndicate oral presentation of a small business plan.
The first assessment task requires students to demonstrate an understanding of entrepreneurship theories and how to develop an entrepreneurial mindset. Students will be provided with several case studies of business ideas and then respond to questions based on this. This allows them to demonstrate and apply higher level thinking to a scenario. They will also critique the existing plans or approaches to demonstrate deeper understanding
The second assessment task requires students to write a multimedia marketing plan for a public health campaign. This will enable students to gain insights into ‘knowing your clients’ and their needs and be introduced to concepts around professional identity and brand.
The third assessment task consolidates the learning of the previous two assignments, requiring students to work as a group to develop a small business plan. This will be presented by student syndicates as an interactive oral presentation.
To pass the unit, students must demonstrate achievement of every unit learning outcome and obtain a minimum mark of 50% in this unit.
Overview of assessments
To answer short answer questions to demonstrate a...
To answer short answer questions to demonstrate an understanding of relevant theories and their application to solving public health challenges with entrepreneurial business approaches. (800 words)
20%
Apply design thinking to write a marketing plan u...
Apply design thinking to write a marketing plan using multi-media for a public health campaign (1,500 words)
40%
To make a syndicate interactive oral presentation...
To make a syndicate interactive oral presentation of a small business plan (15min)
40%
Learning and teaching strategy and rationale
Teaching and learning strategies addressing basic concepts and frameworks will include multiple methods of engagement, representation and expression. These will involve lectures, tutorials, and small group discussions. Specialised topics will rely on videos, discussions with experts in various settings, use of case studies and Canvas or asynchronous content.
The design of this unit is based on the constructivist approach, which supports active learning that encourages students to engage in a range of learning activities to facilitate the construction of new knowledge. Constructive alignment is achieved between learning outcomes, content and assessment tasks.