“One becomes an entrepreneur not by birth but by education as well as by experience” Reason of project: SCIENT will develop an innovative entrepreneurship programme for PhD STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) students/graduates, giving them an insight out of the ivory tower of pure research, developing their transversal skills and providing a new professional path. The EU needs researchers who not only discover new things, but transfer knowledge to others, for maximum social and economic benefit. Scope & benefits: SCIENT will enhance scientific entrepreneurship by concentrating on young researchers, the brightest minds with untapped business potential. Based on EUROSTAT data (2010), there are more than 500,000 PhD students in EU universities, with more than 180,000 (more than 36%) STEM students. Activities: By identifying the strengths, weaknesses, existing gaps and utilising on best practices of existing entrepreneurship programmes, a unique and top quality programme will emerge. This will be pilot tested in 7 countries (CY, PT, ES, IT, LT, UK, MT) and offered to interested stakeholders once finalised. Currently there is no such programme in Europe.Outputs/results: -A innovative entrepreneurship (pre-accelerator) training package for STEM PhD students/graduates, available both as a complete training course or as an elearning programme.-A consolidated report with a description of the state of the art and the needs' analysis conducted across Europe, aiming to identify best practices, strengths and weaknesses and success stories on entrepreneurship and accelerator programmes as well as the needs of STEM PhD students/graduates-Potential for commercialisation of ideas and development of start-ups, following the completion of the pilot testing seminar and the Entrepreneurship Academy/Business Competition event, where 35 PhD students/graduates will have the opportunity to present their business ideas in a panel of investors.
“One becomes an entrepreneur not by birth but by education as well as by experience” Reason of project: SCIENT developed an innovative entrepreneurship programme for PhD STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) students/graduates, giving them an insight out of the ivory tower of pure research, developing their transversal skills and providing a new professional path. The EU needs researchers who not only discover new things, but transfer knowledge to others, for maximum social and economic benefit. Scope & benefits: SCIENT through its completion achieved to enhance scientific entrepreneurship by concentrating on young researchers, the brightest minds with untapped business potential. Based on EUROSTAT data in 2010, there were more than 500,000 PhD students in EU universities, with more than 180,000 (more than 36%) STEM students. Activities: By identifying the strengths, weaknesses, existing gaps and utilising the best practices of existing entrepreneurship programmes collected through visits at local level and abroad, a unique and top-quality programme emerged. Main Outputs/results: -A consolidated report summarizing the results from 7 different countries and including a description of the state of the art and the needs' analysis conducted across Europe, aiming to identify best practices, strengths and weaknesses and success stories on entrepreneurship and accelerator programmes as well as the needs of STEM PhD students/graduates. In total 99 organisations visited across 24 EU countries and about 1100 STEM PhD students/graduates completed the online survey.-The SCIENT Training programme pilot tested in 7 countries (CY, PT, ES, IT, LT, UK, MT) with the participation of 121 pilot participants and a great number of trainers and mentors from different disciplines and with different expertise. The feedback received helped the SCIENT consortium of partners in the finalization of the SCIENT training programme, which was also translated in six different European languages (English, Greek, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Lithuanian) and is available for free on the SCIENT Online Training platform.-The SCIENT online training includes a short description of the training methodology, the trainers involved, the training agenda and of course all PowerPoint presentations for all SCIENT modules in all available languages. -Following the completion of the pilot testing seminar and the Entrepreneurship Academy/Business Competition event, where 34 PhD students/graduates had the opportunity to present their business ideas in a panel of investors, a great potential for the commercialisation of participants’ ideas and development of start-ups arose.