IPEDU is a project aimed at introducing education in the field of Intellectual Property, in the curriculum of technical Universities, through training the teaching, support staff and librarians in IP. There is much that Europe can do to promote IP education in younger generations. IP education should not only mean awareness of the IP rights themselves, but also better knowledge of managing them in contracts and agreements. Better education regarding knowledge-based assets and better knowledge of the innovation support system are vital for lifelong learning and the Knowledge Economy. The objectives of the IPEDU Project is to set out and forecast the needs of the today’s and future labour market in the field of Intellectual Property and to develop relevant learning methodologies, to identify the gap between skills acquired in higher education and the demands of the real labour market, to identify and implement best practices and to design methods for the protection of Industrial Property. The main OBJECTIVES of the IPEDU Project are: 1. To improve the current state of education in the field of Intellectual Property; 2. To strengthen the cooperation between universities and the business environment, to facilitate the exchange, flow and co-creation of knowledge in the field of Industrial Property protection; 3. To correlate the curricula in the field of Industrial Property Law with the concrete needs of the labour market; 4. To reduce the significant differences in the curricula of the Industrial Property courses, both at national and European level; 5. To introduce education in the field of Industrial Property Law to technical faculties; 6. To contribute to the professional development of teaching staff and support staff (librarians), in the field of Industrial Property Law, through Short-term joint staff training events. Last but not least, IPEDU aims to involve librarians in the project, in order to develop Resource Centres in the field of Industrial Property. These Centres will be hosted by the university libraries, and the library staff will be trained to deliver both information on the documentation resources and initial training in the field. When it comes to the TARGET GROUP, the main objective of IPEDU Project is to provide the teaching and support staff from HEIs with the opportunity to improve and adapt their teaching curricula in the field of Industrial Property to the European level. In addition, students from universities involved in the Consortium will form a secondary target group of IPEDU Project, and will be granted access to advanced training programmes relevant for the needs of the labour market. The IPEDU project will develop innovative teaching tools, which will help the staff to acquire the skills and competencies needed to deliver courses, in the field of Intellectual Property, to students at technical universities and library users. Moreover, the role of university libraries will be crucial in this project, as they will host Resource Centres for Intellectual Property, and the partners involved will draft a Guide for setting up and equipping these centres. The support staff, mainly librarians, is of great importance for the approach to this horizontal priority, to this purpose, they will be trained so that to organize resource centres in the field of Intellectual Property in libraries, to source bibliographic resources and to train library users in the essential components of IP. As a result of the project, the technical universities will be able to provide, teaching, support staff and through libraries or other internal structures, courses in the field of Intellectual Property, focusing on the information relevant to the field in which they operate. Also, the faculties will be able to introduce IP courses, focusing on Industrial Property, in their certified curricula. Last but not least, through the Resource Centres, students and university staff will have access to relevant information in the IP field, having the possibility to document on the protection mechanisms existing at national, but especially European level. The project brings together 8 Universities and a consulting SME from 8 Programme countries and will focus on the European dimension of Intellectual Property, encouraging, at every step, the unitary practice. It is planned that 800 members of the teaching staff will access the designed materials, in the whole Consortium, 40,000 students, of which 15000 postgraduates will be provided with the information about the materials in open access and the opportunity to participate in the training program and 20 students from each HEI will participate in the Postgraduate Blended course (160 in total). The implementation of the IPEDU project will provide the teaching staff from the HEIs of the Consortium with the necessary tools in order to enhance and adapt their teaching methods and will be trained to adopt trans-disciplinary approaches in the delivery of the IP courses.
The main objectives of the IPEDU project were to improve the current state of education in the field of Intellectual Property, to strengthen the cooperation between universities and the business environment, to facilitate the exchange, flow and co-creation of knowledge in the field of Industrial Property protection. The project also aimed to correlate the curricula in the field of Industrial Property Law with the concrete needs of the labour market and to reduce the significant differences in the curricula of the Industrial Property courses, both at national and European level. The project also endeavoured to introduce education in the field of Industrial Property Law to technical faculties and to contribute to the professional development of teaching staff and support staff , in the field of Industrial Property Law, through Short-term joint staff training events.
We applied for this project with the aim of introducing education in the field of Intellectual Property (IP), in the curriculum of technical Universities, through training the teaching, support staff and librarians in IP. The project set out to forecast the needs of today’s and future labour market in the field of IP and to develop relevant learning methodologies, to identify the gap between skills acquired in higher education and the demands of the labour market, to identify and implement best practices and to design methods for the protection of IP. Through the development & implementation of a highly innovative 8 Module IPEDU Curriculum, the project has addressed the core need to improve the current state of education in the field of IP, to facilitate the exchange, flow and co-creation of knowledge in the field of Industrial Property protection. The project has contributed to the professional development of teaching and support staff , in the field of IP Law, through Short-term joint staff training events. The project has addressed the need to provide the teaching and support staff from HEIs with the opportunity to improve and adapt their teaching curricula in the field of Industrial Property to the European level.