The PROMISE project aimed to enhance entrepreneurship education by introducing Professional Noticing (PN), an innovative methodology for developing entrepreneurial competences. Its objectives included equipping educators with PN pedagogy, supported by practices and tools provided by the project, to help them integrate it into their courses. Another key objective was to strengthen students’ entrepreneurial competences and foster soft skills that enable them to become more reflective, proactive, and capable of navigating complex challenges. In addition, the project aimed to conduct an empirical study into the effectiveness of PN in enhancing students’ entrepreneurial competences. PN represents a pedagogical approach with underexplored potential to cultivate transversal skills, thereby enabling learners to adapt to dynamic environments and systematically identify opportunities emerging from change. The fourth objective was to share and promote results to expand knowledge of PN and enable its wider adoption by institutions, educators, and other stakeholders. By making this emerging pedagogical approach actionable, PROMISE aimed to foster innovative teaching and align higher and vocational education with future labour market needs.
In the past two decades, entrepreneurial education has shifted from business-centric focus to fostering a broader entrepreneurial mindset. Tomorrow’s entre- and intrapreneurs must navigate unpredictability, societal changes, and a dynamic labour market. Employers increasingly prioritise skills such as creativity and problem-solving to enhance decision-making, as highlighted by PWC's 2019 CEO Survey and the European Skills Agenda. Despite this growing demand, Higher Education (HE) institutions face challenges transitioning from theoretical, knowledge-based teaching to fostering practical soft skills. Post-pandemic opportunities for in-work learning are mostly digital, dramatically changing the learning experience. The project responded to these challenges through the Professional Noticing (PN) approach to develop entrepreneurial competences. PN trains students to observe business dynamics, apply learned knowledge, and enact appropriate interventions, bridging the gap between theory and practice. By strengthening students' entrepreneurial skills and accelerating HEIs' shift to competence-based education, PROMISE addressed two key issues: fostering entrepreneurial citizens and helping HEIs meet 21st-century work demands.