Service-Learning (SL) is a teaching innovation method that combines learning and social
service objectives to improve educational quality and graduate employability. To date, there are hardly
any studies on its global impact on university students. This paper describes and evaluates an SL
experience for Sustainability Entrepreneurship in the context of Spanish Higher Education. Based on
knowledge acquired in classrooms, multi-disciplinary teams of students from di erent subjects related
to Business Administration o ered support to potential entrepreneurs from rural municipalities in
the complex task of writing a successful Business Plan for their projects for local sustainability. Within
this academic framework, our study has two goals: (1) to assess the self-perception of university
students about the improvement in their curricular development, professional skills and civic-social
responsibility after participating in the SL experience; and (2) to estimate its possible e ect on
academic performance. The results show that the students acknowledged they had improved their
social and sustainability commitment and their curricular development, and had acquired skills that
society increasingly demands from future business professionals. Furthermore, service-students
achieved significantly higher academic performance than a control group of non-participating
students. These findings highlight the e ectiveness of SL to provide a more holistic education for
business university students.
