A European University-Business Alliance aiming to foster young SCIEntists’ ENTrepreneurial spirit Erasmus Project

Project Title

A European University-Business Alliance aiming to foster young SCIEntists’ ENTrepreneurial spirit

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 : Knowledge Alliances for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

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

Project Summary

“One becomes an entrepreneur not by birth but by education as well as by experience” Reason of project: SCIENT developed an innovative entrepreneurship programme for PhD STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) students/graduates, giving them an insight out of the ivory tower of pure research, developing their transversal skills and providing a new professional path. The EU needs researchers who not only discover new things, but transfer knowledge to others, for maximum social and economic benefit. Scope & benefits: SCIENT through its completion achieved to enhance scientific entrepreneurship by concentrating on young researchers, the brightest minds with untapped business potential. Based on EUROSTAT data in 2010, there were more than 500,000 PhD students in EU universities, with more than 180,000 (more than 36%) STEM students. Activities: By identifying the strengths, weaknesses, existing gaps and utilising the best practices of existing entrepreneurship programmes collected through visits at local level and abroad, a unique and top-quality programme emerged. Main Outputs/results: -A consolidated report summarizing the results from 7 different countries and including a description of the state of the art and the needs’ analysis conducted across Europe, aiming to identify best practices, strengths and weaknesses and success stories on entrepreneurship and accelerator programmes as well as the needs of STEM PhD students/graduates. In total 99 organisations visited across 24 EU countries and about 1100 STEM PhD students/graduates completed the online survey.-The SCIENT Training programme pilot tested in 7 countries (CY, PT, ES, IT, LT, UK, MT) with the participation of 121 pilot participants and a great number of trainers and mentors from different disciplines and with different expertise. The feedback received helped the SCIENT consortium of partners in the finalization of the SCIENT training programme, which was also translated in six different European languages (English, Greek, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Lithuanian) and is available for free on the SCIENT Online Training platform.-The SCIENT online training includes a short description of the training methodology, the trainers involved, the training agenda and of course all PowerPoint presentations for all SCIENT modules in all available languages. -Following the completion of the pilot testing seminar and the Entrepreneurship Academy/Business Competition event, where 34 PhD students/graduates had the opportunity to present their business ideas in a panel of investors, a great potential for the commercialisation of participants’ ideas and development of start-ups arose.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 991778 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSIDADE DA BEIRA INTERIOR & Country: PT

Project Partners

• ISOB INSTITUT FUR SOZIALWISSENSCHAFTLICHE BERATUNG GMBH
• EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY CYPRUS
• UNIVERSITY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE LBG
• STRATEGISCHE PARTNERSCHAFT SENSORIK EV
• CYBAN CYPRUS BUSINESS ANGELS NETWORK LTD
• PARAGON LIMITED
• ASTER – SOCIETA CONSORTILE PER AZIONI