Collective Innovation to Fight Climate Change Erasmus Project

Project Title

Collective Innovation to Fight Climate Change

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 adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

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

Project Summary

Climate change is the greatest threat we all face today. Whether it is rising sea levels, extreme weather events, global temperature rise, shrinking ice sheets, the world altogether collectively must act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Unfortunately, at this moment of speaking, along with the enormous threat of global warming, we have encountered a pandemic in the name of COVID-19. But one certain advantage emerging from the current global circumstances is that human beings are being tested on their collective understanding of how we are all connected on a global scale.

The ‘Collective Innovation to Fight Climate Change’ project’s vision is to support the successor of the European Cooperation in Education and Training (ET2020) for more ambitious benchmarks for adult education and for more social and sustainable future, where adult education can play a central role in achieving the UN SDGs and combating climate change. Hence, the goal of this project is to fight climate change through collective innovation and efforts and more specifically with all our objectives through the prism of educators, entrepreneurs, SMEs, employees, and/ or individuals altogether.

The specific objectives of the project are:
1. Educate educators on the topic of climate change and the UN SDGs and equip them with interactive training instruments to embed within their trainings –> via the Intellectual Output – Climate Change & Sustainable You Handbook (CU Handbook)
2. Upskill entrepreneurs and SMEs owners/ managers on how to use the innovation management process in developing their sustainability strategies to contribute to the fight against climate change –> via the Intellectual Output – Innovating for Climate Change & Sustainability Toolkit (IC Sustainability Toolkit)
3. Guide entrepreneurs and SMEs owners/ managers on becoming agents of change for their colleagues/ employees and transforming their business culture and values to eco ones –> via the Intellectual Output – Culture of Change. Climate Change Manual. (C Change Manual)
4. Provide a user-friendly digital platform to educators, entrepreneurs, SMEs and individuals to measure their carbon footprint and provide valuable tips on how to help reduce the negative impact on the environment and support the fight against climate change –> via the Intellectual Output – Fight Climate Change Platform (Change Platform)

In addition to the intellectual outputs that the project partners will produce, the project will organise two trainings complementary to the first three outputs and an international conference which will take place in London, UK.

The project consortium consists of 7 partners from 5 countries (UK, Belgium, Spain, Greece and Bulgaria) – EPN Consulting; Worldview Impact Foundation; Creative District; International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation; IDEC; Center for Entrepreneurship and Executive Development and Knowledge, Innovation and Strategies Management Club. The partnership is made up of training organisations, NGOs, consultancies, associations – all supporting the target groups in this project: educators (consultants, trainers, coaches, mentors, etc.), entrepreneurs, SMEs.

Although our consortium cannot fight climate change single-handedly, the current project creates a foundation for the partners to start a collective cooperation on the topic of climate change, leading to introducing collective innovation and tools to support the target groups, resulting in educating adults and raising awareness of how we all contribute to the negative impact on the environment, and how we all can minimize it to a certain extent.

The innovative element in the project could be defined by the collective innovation approach envisaged, implemented through the intellectual outputs. Collective innovation is a connected, open and collaborative process that generates, develops, prioritizes and executes new ideas. Even though climate change is not a new topic, there’s vast information available for ‘consumption’, our project focuses on specific tools to support first – the partners in the project to embed climate change as part of their values and culture (and joint collaboration throughout long period of time is a good way to have a strong and stable way to approach this), transferring the elaborated materials to educators to be able to deliver this to their target groups, leading to exhaustive support to entrepreneurs and SMEs to design their own climate change and sustainability strategies, and second – introduce eco culture within their enterprises for their colleagues and employees, contributing to more knowledge about climate change within all those groups, who will be more alert on this subject as individuals. Thus, along the chain and collectively through the collective innovation of all, we can achieve widespread collection of human knowledge.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 359575 Eur

Project Coordinator

EPN Consulting Limited & Country: UK

Project Partners

• KLUB PO UPRAVLENIE NA ZNANIYA, INOVACII I STRATEGII
• WORLDVIEW IMPACT FOUNDATION
• ASOCIACION INTERNACIONAL DE PARQUES TECNOLOGICOS IASP
• AINTEK SYMVOULOI EPICHEIRISEON EFARMOGES YPSILIS TECHNOLOGIAS EKPAIDEFSI ANONYMI ETAIREIA
• CEED Bulgaria
• CreaD