Enhance Skills in StartUps for wastE iN Circular Economy Erasmus Project

Project Title

Enhance Skills in StartUps for wastE iN Circular Economy

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Enterprise, industry and SMEs (incl. entrepreneurship); New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education

Project Summary

The EU is more and more promoting a transition toward a “circular” flow in the economic system. The transition is needed because it tackles two main problems that affects the union: unemployment and environmental challenges. Unemployment is still major issue for EU nowadays and likely will be in the following years as the rate of economic growth still lags behind and while most of the environmental target in Europe 2020 are close to be achieved, a well documented need for knowledge , abilities, values and attitudes are still needed to create a proper equilibrium between society, the economic system and the necessity of reducing the impact of human activity on the environment.

The ESSENCE project aimed at covering the gap in those fields primarily by empowering the trainers of future entrepreneurs but also enhancing the knowledge of policy makers by supplying counseling material for policy-makers inspiring them to enable better conditions to change production, transport and market paradigms.

The project has reached different category of persons, in particular professionals coming from, green enterprises, startup incubators and accelerators, universities and research centers, VET and Higher education suppliers, Development agencies for an total of approximately 400 participants reached by the project.

Main project activities were related to the production of four thematic intellectual outputs.

1) The design and development of a Smart trend Map of circular economy startups creation in Europe with a focus on waste business (IO1). 19 cases from all over Europe have been included in the Smart Map.

2) The design and development of a conceptual Mindmap of best practices and open access material on Circular Economy entrepreneurship, focusing on startups cases (IO2). The Mindmap includes over 170 references.

3)The elaboration and development of a toolkit of training materials to help Startup trainers/ Entrepreneurial Coaches supporting new entrepreneurs in the field of CE with a focus on waste business opportunities (IO3). The platform is available online in 6 languages (English, Danish, Italian, Greek, Spanish, French).

4) Data collection and development of a Policy Library to gather policy advices from partners and stakeholders to the benefit of policy makers and stakeholders (IO4). 32 documents representing local, national and international policies have been included in the Library.

The project organized as well a LTTA, with 18 participants representing of the different target categories, and 3 multiplier events (Spain, Greece, Denmark) to disseminate project results and further involve stakeholders from the different countries.

The partnership behind the project was formed by the different types of partners, which applied a collaborative methodology emphasizing each partners’ specificity. Scientific partners have collaborated closely to ensure that the scientific content has been of high quality and the teaching material was accessible – yet challenging – at the same time. Representative institutions have exploited their network to gather all the needed data to fulfill the creation of IOs and to properly disseminate the project. Incubators and entrepreneurial institutions have both supported the creation of outputs exploiting their internal competences and gathered the attention of practitioners and professionals in the startup world.

The projects aimed at having a long term impact by giving trainers the ability to increase their knowledge and affecting positively on many different generations of entrepreneurs. All the teaching materials are online available for every professional to use, igniting a virtuous loop of knowledge in the Circular Economy environment, supported by the contemporary improvement of policy maker knowledge expected through the use of the policy library tool. Both of these project results have been designed to have an impact measured over time (future entrepreneurs, future decision makers about CE regulations) through the empowerment of knowledge base and training personnel.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 193495 Eur

Project Coordinator

Det dansk-italienske Handelskammer i Danmark & Country: DK

Project Partners

• FUNDACIÓN UNIVERSITARIA IBEROAMERICANA
• AARHUS UNIVERSITET
• COOPERATION BANCAIRE POUR L’EUROPE
• FVB S.R.L
• ETAIREIA AXIOPOIISEOS KAI DIACHEIRISEOS TIS PERIOUSIAS TOU ETHNIKOU METSOVIOU POLYTECHNEIOU (E.M.P.)