GameBiz Erasmus Project

Project Title

GameBiz

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 2014

Project Topics

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

Project Summary

Europe still feels the economic crisis and also faces a problem with unacceptable youth unemployment. GameBiz has addressed both problems by innovative practices in education. It developed a model that incorporates business and job creation, which eccoes one of the main goals of the ET2020 paper concerning: enhancing creativity and innovation, including entrepreneurship, at all levels of education and training. GameBiz has developed a model for establishing pre-graduate “business incubators” already from upper secondary TVET level, and at the end of the project more than 20 small new companies have been established, 3 incubators are up and running, and the partner universities have looked into the possibility of creating incubators of their own, or incorporated entrepreneurship in their curricula.
The chosen niche is the gaming industry, which reflects a recent Green Paper, where the EU Commission describes the need for more focus on Europe’s potentials for cultural and creative industries (CCIs). Besides, the industry is one of the most important in the world. Research firm Gartner, forecast the market to be $111 billion by 2015. In Europe, we have a unique chance of being among the leaders, because of a high youth digital literacy and strong infrastructure. But we must move fast, because other parts of the world have discovered the industry’s potential and are acting on it. Since the number of games companies in Europe is still small, we shall learn how to teach our students to become entrepreneurs and create jobs themselves.

Our project consortium had some of the trail-blazer institutions in this field in Europe, and the setup allowed the consortium to work in a triple helix model, or in a knowledge triangle (ET2020). Co-ordinating partner, Viden Djurs and Dania Games are both TVET institutions, forming one edge of the triangle, 4 universities that all have branches specialised in interactive media, games design and development, form the other, and Dutch Game Garden, along with the associated partners, who are all umbrella organisations, form the last. The GameBiz project point of reference has been Dutch Game Garden who disseminated their model and way of working to the rest of the consortium, via workshops, where the GameBiz model was taught to teachers and lecturers, who have now implemented a local version in their institutions. The project workshops were action-based to empower the subsequent model implementation and further mainstreaming of the GameBiz model. Learning game centred entrepreneurship from DGG has been a great opportunity, and something all partners looked forward to become able to strengthen their students’ entrepreneurial skills and mind-set. Relevant umbrella organisations participated as associated partners in the dissemination of the project results as well as securing exposure in the gaming industry for the GameBiz start-up companies.

GameBiz results are: The GameBiz Business Incubator Model, the GameBiz Business model, GameBiz Business Coach Job Description, and the GameBiz Competences Database. 3 incubators are now up and running and enabling young entrepreneurs to start up new companies. Local versions of the model have been or are in the process of being implemented across Europe and serve as inspiration for other institutions looking for similar models. All model descriptions have been placed for free download on the project homepage. The GameBiz model is easily transferable to other sectors as a good tool in the creation of new jobs and companies in the ICC sector, which might be Europe’s best chance of staying among the economic leaders of the world.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 299547,57 Eur

Project Coordinator

Viden Djurs & Country: DK

Project Partners

• UNIVERSITA TA MALTA
• BOURNEMOUTH UNIVERSITY
• U. College of New Technologies
• ERHVERVSAKADEMI DANIA
• STICHTING DUTCH GAME GARDEN
• STICHTING HOGESCHOOL VOOR DE KUNSTEN UTRECHT