With an unprecedented health, social and economic crisis being unleashed across the globe due to the pandemic, the entrepreneurial mindset, which stimulates creative thinking, coping with uncertainty and risks and adapting to new challenges, is crucial in preventing an increase in unemployment rates and reviving Europe’s competitiveness and innovative capacity. In 2016, the EC published the Entrepreneurship Competence Framework (EntreComp) model that proposes a set of key competences that make individuals entrepreneurial and reduce the skill mismatch between the demand and supply of skill in the labour market. University degrees outside Business Schools continue to fall short in cultivating these competences and supporting graduates to turn ideas into practice, because non-business academics often lack the ability to foster entrepreneurial mindset and the integration of entrepreneurship in non-business degrees is not a national priority for most EU countries. Open Educational Resources (OER) and online learning not only offer flexible scheduling but have also helped educational institutions to circumvent the physical and social challenges brought up by the Covid-19 outbreak. The strategic partnership aims to create an online training programme on entrepreneurship to upskill academics in non-business disciplines to acquire entrepreneurial competences and the pedagogical approaches that cultivate entrepreneurial competences and foster entrepreneurial mindset. The consortium is composed of two Cypriot organisations, being a private consultancy company with an expertise in soft skills development and entrepreneurship training (GrantXpert Consulting) and a non-profit Incubator and Accelerator Centre (IDEA Innovation Centre), a Greek NGO with an expertise in digital learning in the field of entrepreneurship and soft skills (Institute of Entrepreneurship Development), a public university in Portugal (University of Beira Interior) and a technological university in (Kauno Technologijos Universitetas). This ensures synergies between Higher Education Institutions (HEI), professional training and incubators and complements expertise with the ultimate goal of training academics on entrepreneurship and transforming them into moderators of their students’ training in entrepreneurial competences. The primary target group is both academics and university students from HEIs in non-business subjects, including Technical, Scientific and Creative Studies, where an emphasis on entrepreneurial competences is missing, even though they are more likely to generate innovative and viable startups. The secondary target groups, which will benefit indirectly are HEIs, professional trainers, learners aspiring to acquire entrepreneurial competences, business and local authority representatives. ENTRANCE will provide a set of highly transferable outputs, including a set of 12 short courses on entrepreneurial competences available as OERs and a Pedagogical Guidebook for academics collected in a freely accessible MOOC (IO5). The MOOC will be developed based on the identified best practices across Europe and mapping of the academics’ current entrepreneurial competences against the EntreComp framework (IO1). It will be accompanied by an interactive online tool on Business Plan development, taking learners through the entire venture creation process (IO2). Following a workshop on co-creating OERs, partners will work collaboratively online to design the courses and create a beta version of the MOOC, as well as short case videos featuring real-life experiences of successful entrepreneurs (IO3). Participants of the project (both academics and students) will pilot test the developed OERs, which will be delivered in a blended learning approach in each country, and develop a Business Plan using the tool with guidance from mentors involved in the Online Community Platform of ENTRANCE (IO4). Their feedback will be utilised by all partners to revise the OERs and release the final MOOC on a MOOC aggregator platform for free use. All project outputs are designed to enhance the entrepreneurial mindset and competences of both academics and students in non-business fields, as well as their motivation to engage in entrepreneurial endeavours. The Pedagogical Guidebook will provide academics with ways to integrate entrepreneurship in their curricula by taking on the role of moderators instead of lecturers. The ultimate goal of ENTRANCE is to: a) equip academics with the capacity to stimulate an entrepreneurial mindset, utilise online learning to create inter-disciplinary curricula and engage in entrepreneurial activities themselves; b) improve the entrepreneurial competences of university students, enabling them to adapt to new challenges, enter the job market and start their own business; c) help HEIs integrate entrepreneurship across all fields of study; and d) reduce the skills mismatch in the labour market to boost EU’s innovation and competitiveness.
The overall scope of the project, was to develop a practice-oriented training programme enhancing the entrepreneurial skills and mindset of academics and university students in non-business disciplines. As such, the related objectives were to create an impact in reducing the skills mismatches between Higher Education and the demands of the labour market, through pilot testing the programme in the consortium countries and confirming its usefulness and application. Moreover, non-business academics and students, were encouraged to start thinking entrepreneurially, and develop their own start-ups at some point in the future. Teaching entrepreneurship in Universities, especially in non-business studies, was another goal of this project. Academics who had the opportunity to pilot test the training programme, had also the opportunity to become familiarised with pedagogical approaches related with entrepreneurship, hence adopting these in their own curricula in the future; along the same line, stimulating students to think creatively, take initiatives and develop transversal skills, objectives which have been realised through the 2-year implementation of the project.
The consortium of partners have applied for this project, embracing the need that the modern economy has for entrepreneurial skills. It is essential to invest time and resources into developing key business creation knowledge, especially in Universities, in non-business related departments. The integration of entrepreneurship education in studies outside Business and Economics departments remains weak, particularly in the consortium countries. The project objectives were: • Reduce the skills mismatch between Higher Education and the demands of today’s labour market. • Create more versatile non-business academics. • Equip non-business academics with pedagogical approaches fostering the entrepreneurial mindset of students by becoming moderators of learning. • Create a critical mass of non-business academics and graduates, who are competent to turn their ideas into start-ups or spin-offs. • Encourage HEIs to integrate entrepreneurship in non-business studies. • Stimulate students to think creatively, take initiatives and develop transversal skills. • Increase economic growth and competitiveness in Europe.