Mainstreaming Student Entrepreneurship Erasmus Project

Project Title

Mainstreaming Student Entrepreneurship

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 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Regional dimension and cooperation

Project Summary

Europe needs more entrepreneurial citizens: creative, confident individuals who innovate to solve problems and convert ideas into value across enterprises, organizations and the public sector. Entrepreneurship is now understood as a mind-set, a set of transversal competences of value to ALL individuals. The failure to widen and improve the scope of entrepreneurship education for young people in VET beyond the business planning aspects undermines the ambitions and employability of students, perpetuates youth unemployment, and limits opportunities for value creation for local and regional economic development. MASTER was designed with a clear objective: to increase the proportion of VET students acquiring an entrepreneurial mind-set and engaging in early stage entrepreneurial activity by widening the scope of training, raising awareness and improving the pedagogic capacities of VET policy makers and educators. The regional aspects of this project facilitate improved collaboration between stakeholders in the entrepreneurship ecosystem and boost sustainability of the project. In order to achieve this we set out the following project methodology. The main activities undertaken include:
– A needs and opportunities analysis was developed stating the case for an integrated, cross sector approach to student entrepreneurship education. The paper was developed after an in-depth review of literature and extensive consultations from each of the partner countries and at EU level to explore the enablers, barriers, needs, opportunities and existing support available that relates to the development of entrepreneurship education.
– 5 Regional Alliances were established in Ireland, Holland, Spain, Northern Ireland and Denmark which brought together 61 stakeholders from VET, private and public sector. The Alliance was involved in consultation for the needs analysis, mapping existing supports, learning from best practice, the development of Regional Action Plans and dissemination activities.
– Jointly develop a Student Entrepreneurship Support Toolkit and pilot at least 10 innovative entrepreneurship training activities across five jurisdictions. The training activities were; Arguing your business idea; Bono’s thinking hats; Business Model Canvas; Business Pitch; CIE Model; Intellectual Property Workshop; Launch Game; Radiant Thinking; Random Request and Self-Reflection. The toolkit includes detailed summaries, lesson plans and tips for replicating the activities, this is supported by the project website which includes essential and additional resources to assist teachers in rolling out these activities in their own settings.
– The project outputs and findings have been widely disseminated via a multilingual project website and comprehensive dissemination strategy.

The unique structure of the MASTER project provided a reliable means of ensuring ongoing, systemic improvements to increasing the proportion of VET students acquiring an entrepreneurial mind-set and engaging in early stage entrepreneurial activity, region by region. Thanks to improved entrepreneurship education in their colleges and institutions, more students will acquire entrepreneurial mindsets, enhancing their employability, and students with start ups will be better linked to the wider entrepreneurship support system to gain focussed support to help push their startups forward upon completion of their course. VET institutions have gained more prominent positions in the entrepreneurship system. Through the Regional Alliances they have built collaborative relationships with the enterprise development and VET entrepreneurship sectors. Overall, their teaching programmes have been strengthened and diversified enhancing the performance and appeal of the VET college. Regional economies will be strengthened by new business starts and cohorts of more entrepreneurial students will enter jobs in the region and drive intrapreneurship and innovation in the organisations they work for. In addition cohorts of more entrepreneurial students will enter jobs in the region and drive intrapreneurship and innovation in the organisations they work for. The project has been successful in responding to a genuine need experienced by partner organisations in the vocational education, entrepreneurship support and economic development sectors who will benefit from using the outputs and sustaining the impacts of the project in the long term.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 214267,31 Eur

Project Coordinator

LISBURN AND CASTLEREAGH CITY COUNCIL & Country: UK

Project Partners

• EUROPEAN FORUM OF TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING
• CEBANC
• Roscommon Integrated Development Co. Ltd t/a Roscommon LEADER Partnership
• TEKNISK ERHVERVSSKOLE CENTER
• Feltech Software Innovations Ltd
• Stichting Incubator