The ICT Engineer of the 21st Century: Mastering Technical Competencies, Management Skills, and Societal Responsibilities Erasmus Project

Project Title

The ICT Engineer of the 21st Century: Mastering Technical Competencies, Management Skills, and Societal Responsibilities

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 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

Europe must educate millions of new ICT engineers because they will be one of the crucial parts of the AI/ML-driven companies in the Industry 4.0 era, which is ahead of us. Surely, such highly skilled professionals will be equally crucial for both multinational companies consisting of hundreds of thousands of employees as well as for establishing hundreds of thousands of new start-up companies. The “The ICT Engineer of the 21st Century: Mastering Technical Competencies, Management Skills, and Societal Responsibilities (TEAMSOC21)” project is a step forward in that direction, taken by a consortium of 12 universities from 8 EU countries. The main objective of the TEAMSOC21 project is to set up a transnational multidisciplinary intensive study program in the field of ICT-based entrepreneurship.

The TEAMSOC21 curricula, which is freely available as an open educational resource (OER), consists of four main topic groups:
– “entrepreneurship” as a core topic;
– intercultural topics, with focus on “multicultural teams”;
– ICT topics, with focus on “entrepreneurship in ICT” and especially “entrepreneurship with ICT”;
– student start-up projects, with focus on “entrepreneurial cases on how ICT can contribute to innovative societal development”, related to the role of ICT in responding to societal challenges defined by “Europe 2020” and “Horizon 2020” programs.

The TEAMSOC21 project successfully targeted the following Erasmus+ program objectives:
– enhancing the relevance of student knowledge, skills and competences (especially in fields of transversal skills and entrepreneurial experiences for engineering students) – more than 75 students from 8 EU countries impacted;
– operationalising open and innovative practices for the digital era – more than 75 students and 50 lecturers from 8 EU countries impacted;
– supporting the production and adoption of open educational resources (OER) – 11 entrepreneurial cases and 30 lectures created and made freely available as OER;
– pursuing priorities enlisted in general EU strategies (“Europa 2020, Innovation Union”), as well as specific EU strategies (“Horizon 2020”, “Education and Training 2020”) – 2 iterations of a transnational multidisciplinary intensive study program in the field of ICT-based entrepreneurship organised, involving more than 125 students and lecturers and covering all Horizon H2020 pillars.

In addition to core participants (students and lecturers from the TeamSoc21 consortium), more than 250 primary school pupils and high school students, as well as their teachers, from Croatia and Spain participated in the multiplier events targeted at raising awareness and popularising STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) among potential future university students.
As a result, TeamSoc21 students increased skills and knowledge related to entrepreneurship in and with ICT as well as they increased teamwork and experience working in an international and intercultural project environment. TeamSoc21 lecturers increased competencies in the use of ICT tools in educations, increased experience of teaching in the international environment, as well as increased experience in creating education materials which consider not only technical but also business and societal aspects. TeamSoc21 universities increased the internationalization of higher education and enhanced mobility rates, increased probability of new students in the area of ICT and improved links between education and labour market. Also, they enriched their curricula with open course materials on innovation and entrepreneurship as many TeamSoc21 universities are already using (or plan to use) the developed materials for existing or new subjects in their traditional study programs. Finally, high school students increased understanding of the importance of skills and knowledge needed to become a successful entrepreneur in the field of ICT, as well as they increased understanding of the importance of STEM-related studies.

The TeamSoc21 consortium manages to maintain its sustainability for more than 15 years. It started as the ESM with a smaller scope of activities, built up through the SUSCOMTEC Erasmus Intensive program and continued through the INNOSOC and TeamSoc21 ERASMUS+ KA2 activities. The consortium will continue its operations within the new Erasmus+ KA2 Strategic Partnership project “Education of Future ICT Experts Based on Smart Society Needs (SmartSoc)”, what will ensure the sustainability of the consortium and results created in the TeamSoc21 project because the SmartSoc project builds upon the TeamSoc21 platform both from perspectives of methodology as well as produced OER.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 224137 Eur

Project Coordinator

SVEUCILISTE U ZAGREBU FAKULTET ELEKTROTEHNIKE I RACUNARSTVA & Country: HR

Project Partners

• UNIVERSITAT POLITECNICA DE VALENCIA
• UNIVERSITATEA DIN ORADEA
• IMT Atlantique Bretagne Pays de la Loire
• VISHE UCHILISHTE PO TELEKOMUNIKATSI I POSHTI
• TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF SOFIA
• DEBRECENI EGYETEM
• Hochschule für Telekommunikation Leipzig