Purchasing Education and Research with an Innovative Sustainability Scope Erasmus Project

Project Title

Purchasing Education and Research with an Innovative Sustainability Scope

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Environment and climate change; Open and distance learning; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

Context
In the modern network economy, a typical industrial firm in Europe spends about 60% of their turnover on purchased components. More than half of the entire income of a firm is directly routed through to its suppliers. Hence, not only from the perspective of an individual firm but from the perspective of European competitiveness the management of the buyer-supplier interface, i.e. professional Purchasing and Supply Management (PSM), is crucial. For that, world-class training and education of purchasers are necessary. In a previous Erasmus+ strategic partnership project we empirically identified the skills characteristic for successful purchasers and developed a curriculum and a MOOC for teaching them (www.project-perfect.eu). However, since then, a new development gained unpreceded momentum, the sustainability challenge facing the global economy. Developing sustainable and innovative solutions in supply chain management design is now obligatory for businesses, not just an option. The PERISCOPE project aims to prepare students in acquiring future PSM skills and key competencies towards innovative and sustainability solutions. In the fast-changing world, PSM employers need to keep pace with the occurring developments. Institutes for higher education need to be a step ahead of the employer needs of the future and have to face the future and prepare students for the upcoming developments i.e. sustainable developments. Within education as well as in industry there is a strong demand for directions on how to manage this change in general and how to educate and prepare the purchasing workforce in particular.

Objectives
Project PERISCOPE’s objective is to address this demand, by a) identifying those skills which are likely to prevail and those which are newly added to the profile of a European purchaser and supply manager and b) develop a course-set to teach these skills. Moreover, it would be a missed opportunity to try to teach global mindset, critical thinking and entrepreneurial skills with traditional means. Hence, c) PERISCOPE is going to develop an open student-centred learning in digital space with educational materials and simulation games.

Needs and target groups to be addressed
The challenge is that currently, very little knowledge is available on how purchasing managers together with their suppliers can develop sustainable and innovative solutions to face the environmental changes and requirements from an educational perspective. The following question arises on
-How will the purchasing and supply managers select and evaluate sustainable suppliers?
-Which skills and knowledge are managers likely to need? for developing sustainable and innovative solutions together with their suppliers?
-And how to train current students of the future in an efficient, modern way (i.e. student-centred), i.e.already reflecting innovative and integrated methods?

Number and profile of the transnational participants
The PERISCOPE consortium consists of five partners with complementary skills. The workload is spread over the five universities equally. In every university two colleagues are working in the project; in total 10 researchers will work on the project. The project consists of about 1500 working days, meaning that the workload per person is 150 working days in 3 years, which is approximately 1 day per week on average. The workload is divided in a way that the project work can be performed within three years by the team of researchers.

Outputs and results:
1. Providing a framework for Innovation and Sustainability PSM competencies (knowledge, skills and traits)
2. Description of best practices World Café sessions approach to the collection of future competence requirements for PSM managers towards innovative and sustainability solutions
3. Describing a procedure for using gamification elements and playful interaction concepts in teaching courses (accessible tool-set using modern digital learning elements, gamification)
4. Developing an open module-based course for finding and applying innovative and sustainable solutions in PSM Education
5. Providing open-source learning material to prepare students for finding and applying innovative and sustainable solutions in PSM Education

Project Website

http://eu-periscope.essca.fr/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 367620 Eur

Project Coordinator

Groupe ESSCA & Country: FR

Project Partners

• COPENHAGEN BUSINESS SCHOOL
• UNIVERSITEIT TWENTE
• TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET GRAZ
• AUDENCIA