CONTEXT All the five participating universities are members of YERUN (Young European Research Universities Network), a network that includes eighteen highly ranked European universities, which are committed to deliver excellence in teaching and learning. Education collaboration and graduate employability - that represent the pillars on which this project is built upon - are among the strategic actions of the network. The wider context for this project is determined by the large impact digital transformation can have on the economic growth potential of Europe and the relevant role Management Consulting industry is playing as a key enabler of digital transformation processes; in particular, the digital skills gap between the strong demand coming from the job market and the limited availability of training opportunities on digital innovation for students in higher education institutions. MAIN OBJECTIVE: This project aims to the design of a blended “e-learning+face-to-face” course able to build up digital skills among higher education students through an in-depth training merging codified knowledge and experiential learning for consulting on digital transformation processes. PARTICIPANTS on the partners side: the 5 project partners are all leading institutions at national level with a strong interdisciplinary character and with a flexible structure: University of Antwerp, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, University of Eastern Finland, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Università degli Studi di Roma ‘Tor Vergata’, Key persons have been identified in each institution, in terms of administrative and academic staff. Associated partners will be the overall YERUN network and the Italian Association of Management Consulting Companies (Assoconsult Confindustria). Both associated partners will contribute substantially to the development and to the results of the project. on the target groups side: 40 students per year in the intensive face-to-face training programme and a growing number of participants to the online courses (up to 500 in the third year). The participation to the face-to-face programme is bounded by the need for a strong interaction among project participants and management consulting companies in working on business cases. Target profiles are: 60% from Management and Economics; 30% from Data Science/Statistics/Informatics; 10% from different backgrounds. ACTIVITIES The core activities of the project are the design and delivery of a blended course on digital management consulting made of three self-standing e-learning modules and an experiential-based intensive training programme. METHODOLOGY As to the project management, all the activities will be carried out in a collaborative way by clearly identifying the role that each partner will be asked to play. A smooth collaboration will be supported by the past and existing initiatives that these universities are sharing within the YERUN network. As to the learning process, the course will be designed as blended as to have e-learning modules for reaching a large audience and an experiential learning phase for developing soft skills. This approach aims to establish lasting behaviour change through not only the sharing of codified knowledge but also a process of experience, reflection, conceptualisation and experimentation. RESULTS By the end of the third year, the project aims to achieve the following results: - design course contents and course materials in the interdisciplinary and practice-oriented area of digital management consulting with the focus on how new technologies can be effectively leverage to redesign business processes; - design and deliver on an open access platform a 3 weeks e-learning course that will have already trained around 1.000 students in area of digital consulting; - design and deliver a highly interactive experiential intensive training programme developed together with management consulting companies, that will have transmitted both formal knowledge and soft skills to 120 students; - strengthen further research and teaching collaborations, as part of a network of European universities that since 2015 have started a long term collaboration which will contribute to the creation of the EEA by 2025 IMPACT The project will have a strong impact on the participants, in terms of learners and project partners, as well as associated partners. It will contribute to equip learners with the digital skills required by the labour market. New teaching contents will be developed in the area of digital management consulting and guidelines for an innovative course design format able to offer experiential learning will be at disposal of higher education educators. Also the professional development of the administrative staff involved in the project will be enhanced. In the longer term, the project also has the potential to contribute to a new course design approach by blending the two very different approaches of online and experiential learning.
The Project wanted to achieve two major objectives: 1. explore innovative ways to use digital teaching technologies following a blended experiential learning approach. The goal was to design an initial e-learning section to provide participants with the key concepts of digital transformation, and then run an intensive face-to-face learning activity with hands-on experiences on consulting assignments. 2. transfer consulting skills as required for supporting digital transformation processes. The close collaboration with the Management Consulting sector aiming at the co-design of the contents avoided a mismatch between competences taught to the students in universities and skills required by industry. Both these objectives shared the common goal of strengthening students employability in the labour market, considering that junior profiles with a mix of digital, managerial and relational skills are increasingly requested by management consulting companies.
In spite of multiple initiatives across Europe, there was (and there is still) a significant gap concerning the availability of digital competences. Therefore, in line with the targets of the European Skills Agenda and the Digital Education Action Plan, the project partners saw the opportunity of a new course aimed at strengthening digital skills among students. Moreover, digital technologies were entering into the education sector, mainly through new players, while a large share of the university teaching staff was lagging behind. Therefore the project partners saw the need for an upgrade of the instructors’ skills. Both these concerns have become even more evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many activities were moved online and the need for digital skills further increased. Within such an overall scenario, BUDS partnership saw the relevance of the specific needs of the management consulting industry and identified the key characteristics of the digital management consultant profile. Given their competences, the project partners decided to apply with the goal to develop a training programme having its contents tailored to this specific industry needs and a methodology applicable in many other digital transformation areas.