This project is from Erasmus+ program in which cooperate with strategic partnerships for higher education to develop of innovation and the exchange og good practices. Europe’s future economic growth and jobs will increasingly have to come from innovation in products, services and business models. This is why innovation and creativity has been placed at the heart of the Europe 2020 strategy for growth and jobs. According to the Communication from the Commission “Supporting growth and jobs – an agenda for the modernisation of Europe's higher education systems”, universities need to create structured partnerships with the business community and increase the relevance of education and training programmes by adding entrepreneurial skills to scientific expertise, so to improve the career prospects of researchers and students.
The project will steam from the previous experiences of the partners in the field of entrepreneurship education and knowledge transfer. Most of the members of the consortium have already put in place some training activities and/or consulting services at local or European level. However those initiatives are only implemented in departments or faculty dealing with economics and business, rather than widening the scope of them toward all university departments.
A structured and better implementation of entrepreneurial learning as education offer to all University departments and faculties is doubtless needed together with specific guidelines for the creation of links between universities and business, aimed to favour mutual exchange between universities and industries and cross-fertilisation with the business community and with the wider society. The main innovation proposed by the present project focuses on this and on the approach to boostthe knowledge triangle. The training proposed, does not only focus on the development of the target groups entrepreneurial skills, but mainly in creating a positive background at territorial level thus to ease the employability of researchers and young graduates and boost the innovation potential of the territories involved.
Therefore, the training will include, besides enterprise creation and management, also development of transversal and soft skills and a specific module on creation of links with business, in line with the Higher Educaiton Modernisaiton Agenda. The aim is to favour the creation of structured partnerships with the business community (including SMEs), which can bring opportunities for universities to improve the sharing of research results, intellectual property rights, patents and licences (for example through innovation clusters, fablab, BIC, incubators etc.). Thanks to these links, universities can also increase the relevance of education and training programmes through placements of students and researchers in business, and can improve the career prospects of researchers at all stages of their career by adding entrepreneurial skills to scientific expertise.
The consortium possesses the right set of skills to reach this objective, as most of the partners work as joining link between education and labour market, research and business.
The main objectives in this project are learning entrepreneurships. However it was divided to small:
The investigation will focus on the concrete obstacles and skill gaps that make the collaboration between universities and business difficult.
A qualitative/quantitative tool will be elaborated to collect data such as questionnaires and interviews.
The aim of this scorecard tool is to assess different issues, including:
• the attitude and perception of knowledge-based entrepreneurship;
• the extent to which academic research can produce marketable products and services and have market knowledge;
• the barriers experienced to the creation of links with the business community;
• whether specific structures, systems and cultures are in place to enable the leap from research to market;
• specific needs at local/national level;
• attitudes towards risk-taking; and lack/needs of transversal skills.
The aim of this project is to develop training materials for the target groups and develop new content to enhance transversal competences for entrepreneurship.
Each module will be developed as a programme for a workshop, each focused on one specific theme. The final outcome will be a modular training course to be implemented with a set of workshops. However a series of topics have been already presented, such as:
– T-Skills/soft skills: leadership, risk-taking, communication, creativity (mainly based on practical exercises);
– Hard skills related to business creation: business idea formulation, market identification, route to market, business plan; IPR management, Legal and fiscal issues (country specific information)
– Social media and marketing
– Making the knowledge triangle work: linking higher education, research and business for excellence and regional development
Each module/workshop will focus on a specific issue and, besides the definition of the content, it will be equipped with the appropriate learning materials, which will be designed considering the appropriate pedagogical methods, and scenario development i.e. action plans for market application. Moreover, each module will be equipped with self-evaluation tools such as tests, quizzes and other educational exercises.
In project will create an innovative e-learning space for the RECREATE training plan.
The creation of the learning environment entails the development of the knowledge base, that will allow a friendly, fast and easy access to materials and contents; a self-diagnostic tool that will guide the users to proper materials according to the situation and specific application environment; interactive items, such as educational games, simulations of the process of creation of a business; news area, with information and news relevant to the topic; and support tools as forums, FAQs, manuals for system use and any other tool that users consider necessary will be developed and incorporated.
The newly developed learning environment and its tools will be based on the methodology of mixing traditional training approach (the training modules) with informal learning: simulations, educational games are in fact meant to favour the acquisition of key competences through non-traditional methods. Among the main innovation the project aims to bring to the existing e-learning package, there is the inclusion of informal learning and interactive tools, favouring interest, curiosity, active participation of learners and sometimes also the possibility to have fun.
