Cultural Studies in Business Erasmus Project

Project Title

Cultural Studies in Business

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 higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Recognition (non-formal and informal learning/credits); Research and innovation

Project Summary

The CSB project has been designed to bring a real innovation in Economic and Business studies, usually far and not connected with Cultural Studies. The two “worlds” don’t dialogue and in most cases, lecturers of the two areas don’t cooperate. The idea behind the proposal started from the reflection around the deep reflection on the actual economic processes happening at the global level that cannot be analyzed without taking into consideration their relationship with politics, philosophy, religion, science and even art. In other words, the economical concepts have to be refashioned in relation to other concepts and theoretical positions that tend to produce a specific way of the ordering of the world. The nowadays worldwide economic crisis, extremized by the pandemic and the social and sanitary crisis cannot be separated from important needed changes brought by studies more impacted by culture and human sciences.
Cultural studies, an interdisciplinary field concerned with the role of social institutions in the shaping of culture. Cultural studies emerged in Britain in the late 1950s and subsequently spread internationally, notably to the USA and Australia. Originally identified with the Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham (founded 1964) and with such scholars as Richard Hoggart, Stuart Hall, and Raymond Williams, cultural studies later became a well-established field in many academic institutions, and it has since had broad influence in sociology, anthropology, historiography, literary criticism, philosophy, and art criticism. Among its central concerns are the place of race or ethnicity, class, and gender in the production of cultural knowledge. For the first time after this period, the biggest university in Europe which is an authority of classical studies, La Sapienza University, leader of this project, started a new dialogue across departments uniting economists, lecturers of business, management and economics and lecturers of sociology, anthropology, philosophy and communication. The big challenge of the project has been the cooperation in the diversity among partners, crossing sectors and exploring public and private higher education working environments. The cooperation of lecturers of different Countries, working internationally but who didn’t know each other before, constituted a great added value. They have been animated by the will to share and exchange experiences, materials and different teaching styles with the common aim to grow and contribute to increasing the quality of Higher Education in Europe. CSB partners demonstrated to have a strong capacity to question themselves as organizations of the civil society in the frame of the EHEA with the responsibility to increase and innovate the quality of teaching and learning in a global Europe.
CSB university partners: Sapienza University of Rome (IT), PVPU Euro College, Kumanovo (MK), VGTU – now “Vilnius Tech” (LT); the University of Split, Faculty of Economics, Business and Tourism (HU); UBI – Universidade da Beira Interior (PT); University College Wisdom (AL). JUMP Association has been the Italian NGO connecting the project with other civil society organizations, giving strong support in communication, web-design, blogging, social media dissemination, graphics and reporting.
The keyword of this project has been “Culture”. Partners investigated the deep meaning of culture today and its impact in all the spheres of academic studies, especially in economics, business and management. A great value has been given to the research of our common European roots, principles and relations among countries making this project a real European one. The cultural diversity of partners and the fact that the consortium was formed by universities in Eu and non-EU Countries, between public and private, and by the only NGO of the deep South of Italy has been the real richness of this strategic partnership. What could be a weakness has become a strength.
The project fulfilled all the planned objectives, which were very ambitious at the time of submitting the project in 2018 and exceeded all expectations realizing all activities and more, the 3 main intellectual Outputs and extra tangible results and products. It was realized in order 1) An In-Depth Analysis of the Status Quo of Economic Studies in Europe (International research), 2) the Proposal Master Degree Curriculum of “Cultural Studies in Business”, 3) A special issue dedicated to CSB in the scientific journal “Management : Journal of Contemporary Management Issues”. Furthermore, 20 M. Events (out of 19 planned), an international team of lecturers, an official very dynamic website with a blog publishing everyday articles by experts, lecturers and students, 2 books of proceedings, other 2 scientific journals with papers of partners published on the topic, a photography expo, almost 300 students (out of the 140 planned) 9 Pilot Courses (out of the 6 planned).

Project Website

https://www.culturalstudiesinbusiness.org/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 276661 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI ROMA LA SAPIENZA & Country: IT

Project Partners

• UNIVERSIDADE DA BEIRA INTERIOR
• UNIVERSITY OF SPLIT, FACULTY OF ECONOMICS, BUSINESS AND TOURISM
• University College Wisdom
• VILNIAUS GEDIMINO TECHNIKOS UNIVERSITETAS
• JUMP – Gioventù in riSalto
• TECHNICKA UNIVERZITA V KOSICIACH
• P.V.P.U.EURO KOLEDZ KUMANOVO