In order for the European Union to be successful in implementing and expanding open innovation as one of the main driver of its socio-economic growth, higher education institutions (HEI) must be able to produce independent, creative, entrepreneurial individuals, who understand inter- and multidisciplinary challenges of the socio-economic environment and as a result can contribute to open innovation in true convergence with technological growth. Following the latest societal, environmental and technological developments, the digitally driven QUINTUPLE HELIX context (university, industry, policy, society, environment) should be the driver of sustainable development and key growth mechanism for the EU. However, at the current stage, the EU lacks quintuple helix level co-creation to enable the implementation of the envisioned growth. To this end, higher education institutions play a critical role in this aspect by having the upmost need to capitalize on the quintuple helix stakeholders in order to properly co-create digital & responsible (socially & environmentally) entrepreneurship (DREP) curricula in order to 1) meet the EU's long term vision of sustainable development and 2) trigger co-creation and co-evolution among the quintuple helix stakeholders . One way of achieving a working quintuple helix to foster DREP is through co-creation. Chesbrough (2003; 2013) argued that co-creation is the cornerstone of open innovation practices in today’s society. For example, through co-creation, academia can gain useful input from the other stakeholders, that will eventually lead to more market oriented curriculum and better prepared graduates capable to implement responsible entrepreneurship (Chesbrough 2010; Chesbrough 2011). More recently, Carayiannis (2013) introduced the concept of targeted open innovation arguing that open innovation should be focused, strategic, and tailored to the current needs of the stakeholders, thus universities need to enhance their curricula accordingly. Hence, open innovation and co-creation between academia and stakeholders will highly increase academia's capacity of producing more market oriented curricula that will lead to graduates capable of being next generation leaders in responsible entrepreneurship. To this end, DIGI-GRENT responds to this need by aiming to develop an innovative, evidence-based transnational framework that will markedly improve the knowledge and skills of academic institutions to produce more marked/startup oriented DREP curricula, reducing the barriers in this field. The project consortium comprises key academics, investors, industry & startup associations, and societal growth partners from different sectors who will co-create the envisaged DREP curriculum and will pilot it through an open innovation and co-creation virtual learning environment (VLE) online - and face-to-face during three transnational co-creation & pitching events (where students will pitch DREP business ideas and the quintuple helix stakeholders will co-create in order to shape a market oriented venture; the co-creation also targets the curriculum as mentioned before, as well as the VLE). The methodology for managing this quintuple helix co-creation which infuses each output/activitiy of DIGI-GRENT will be done on a quintuple helix co-creation toolkit which is envisioned by the consortium. DIGI-GRENT is directly pertinent to quintuple helix-academia co-operation for innovation and best practices with respect to DREP, and can also support policy reform in this area, leading to more prepared graduates ready for the startup market. Also, DIGI-GRENT will enable transnational DREP skill development/learning mobility leading to DREP homogeneity in EU towards targeting the common EU market. Overall, DIGI-GRENT also follows up the recent plans of the EU to promote improved, efficient and clean operations by 2050 and is also relevant to the EU2020 targets for R&D, climate change, energy efficiency, entrepreneurship and social cohesion. Additionally, DIGI-GRENT is aligned with the goals of Strategic Partnerships for academia-market-society collaboration and the promotion of innovation and best practices, with the Headline Education Target and with the EU Higher Education Modernisation Agenda by providing incentives for higher education internationalization, market-oriented curriculum development, and co-creation with business through integrated features that will lead on the long term of better involvement and support from the industry side to academia. Key numbers include: 45 EU-wide academic staff (different institutions) that will incorporate the DREP curriculum; 35 EU & beyond technology transfer offices that will gain an open-innovation & quintuple helix co-creation best practices; 400 registrants of the VLE, 140 participants in the multiplier evens, 250 participants with fewer opportunities involved in the project, 42 000 people reached through dissemination.
In order for the European Union to be successful in implementing and expanding open innovation as one of the main driver of its socio-economic growth, higher education institutions (HEI) must be able to produce independent, creative, entrepreneurial individuals, who understand inter- and multidisciplinary challenges of the socio-economic environment and as a result can contribute to open innovation in true convergence with technological growth. Following the latest societal, environmental and technological developments, the digitally driven QUINTUPLE HELIX context (university, industry, policy, society, environment) should be the driver of sustainable development and key growth mechanism for the EU. However, at the current stage, the EU lacks quintuple helix level co-creation to enable the implementation of the envisioned growth. To this end, higher education institutions play a critical role in this aspect by having the upmost need to capitalize on the quintuple helix stakeholders in order to properly co-create digital & responsible (socially & environmentally) entrepreneurship (DREP) curricula in order to 1) meet the EU's long term vision of sustainable development and 2) trigger co-creation and co-evolution among the quintuple helix stakeholders . One way of achieving a working quintuple helix to foster DREP is through co-creation, which is the cornerstone of open innovation practices in today’s society. However, open innovation needs to be focused, strategic, and tailored to the current needs of the stakeholders. Thus, universities need to enhance their curricula accordingly. Hence, open innovation and co-creation between academia and stakeholders will highly increase academia's capacity of producing more market oriented curricula that will lead to graduates capable of being next generation leaders in responsible entrepreneurship. In this context, DigiGrent responds to this need by developing an innovative, evidence-based transnational framework that has improved the knowledge and skills of academic institutions to produce more marked/startup oriented DREP curricula (IO1), reducing the barriers in this field. The project consortium comprises key academics, investors, industry & startup associations, and societal growth partners from different sectors who have co-created along with other quintuple helix stakeholders a DREP curriculum, which has been piloted through an open innovation and co-creation virtual learning environment (VLE) (IO3) online during three transnational co-creation & pitching events, held both face to face and online(IO4). In each one of them, 35 participants across Europe have pitched DREP business ideas and the quintuple helix stakeholders have co-created with them in order to shape a market-oriented venture; the co-creation also targeted the curriculum as mentioned before, as well as the VLE. The methodology for managing this quintuple helix co-creation which infuses each output/activitiy of DigiGrent has been related on a quintuple helix co-creation toolkit (IO2). Some of the Key figures of DigiGrent are: • Number of DREP curriculum co-created (1) • Number of academic staff directly engaged in co-creation with quintuple helix staff (20) • Number of non-academic staff directly engaged in co-creation with quintuple helix staff (15) • Number of other academic staff from participating academic institutions that will use parts of the DREP curriculum (25) • Number of academic staff from other EU academic institutions (that have courses related to DREP) that will incorporate findings of the project / the DREP curriculum: (15) • Number of students from participating universities that have been piloted / taught using the DREP curriculum (totally or partially) (587) • Number of students expressing their interest to pursue further studies or even startups related to the DREP curriculum (27) • Number of quintuple helix stakeholders (academics, students, investors/startups, society, environmental organizations) engaged into using the VLE (350) • Number of staff engaged from the participating quintuple helix stakeholders (30) • Number of participants to the 4 multiplier events organized (181) • Number of Local/national/European/international Governmental organizations institutions and technology transfer offices that will gain a best practice/model of an open innovation and co-creation framework for academia-quintuple helix in terms of DREP curriculum development (30). • General third party public that has accessed the available outputs of DIGI-GRENT (through the project exploitation and dissemination efforts). We estimated a calculation of at least 15% of the dissemination target that has been reached, and who could potentially read/benefit from the outputs (5040) • Number of startups engaged in advanced financing discussions with/from investors (1)