Entrepreneurial teaching partnerships for fostering innovation and green startup development in higher education
▶Summary
The partners’ motivation underlying the project application was the need for continuous growth shared by both main project target groups: the staff of the university-based incubators (UBIs) & students, researchers & young entrepreneurs who are supported and guided by the UBIs staff throughout the entire process of the business idea development. Considering their strong focus on innovation & strengthening of their UBIs’ activities, the project partners had identified areas that needed extra work & focus, such as individual growth and development of the UBIs’ staff skills & innovative teaching methods that facilitated also the growth of UBI participants. Another motivational force of the project was the need for establishing of a lasting collaboration network. Merging the knowledge, competencies & expertise of 4 UBIs from 4 different countries, the partners ensured sharing of the best practices among them and established a sustainable collaboration to increase the quality in their work and activities during & after the project. The joint efforts contributed to further development of the partner UBIs, supported their better integration into their respective innovation ecosystems and encouraged use of innovative teaching methods.
▶Objectives
The main objectives of the project were: to raise transnational work capacities by exchanging experiences & transferring knowledge & best practices to increase the volume & quality of activities provided by the participating UBIs; to build a cross sectoral community by enforcing existing networks & developing new ones engaging with different partners & actors to better integrate the HE sector within the innovation ecosystem; to create conditions & motivation system for students, researchers & educators to acquire the necessary soft, technical & leadership skills to address common needs when delivering innovative, high potential business ideas; and to drive growth and transformation at individual, organizational & sectoral level by developing, testing & implementing new transnational entrepreneurial teaching approaches. The main expected results included establishment of sustainable transnational & regional cooperation partnerships & networks, creation of conditions for mutual learning, transfer of knowledge & best practice on an international level; a virtual platform for community building & communication; participant-centred skills training; competencies development workshops for trainers; and a novel pre-incubation program.
▶Impact
The project application envisaged the following outputs & results: created sustainable transnational & regional cooperation partnerships & networks; ensured conditions for mutual learning, exchange of experience, transfer of knowledge on an international level; designed & implemented participant-centred skills & leadership training; delivered training of trainers – series of competencies development workshops for educators from the UBIs; designed & implemented novel international & transdisciplinary pre-incubation programme. All expected results were achieved: 4 local & 2 regional networking events strengthened partners’ ties with their ecosystems and spurred new collaborations; 4 learning trips ensured mutual learning, experience sharing & knowledge transfer on international level; 6 workshops of both rounds of skills & leadership training generated 295 participations; the partners delivered series of individual workshops for the staff members, trainers and mentors of their UBIs and organised two joint online workshops for trainers (69 participations); and altogether 178 individuals were admitted into the both rounds of the pre-incubation programme Green HExagon, with 68 of them successfully completing the programme.