Cultural heritage as a catalyst of creative entrepreneurship Erasmus Project

Project Title

Cultural heritage as a catalyst of creative entrepreneurship

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 : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

Cultural heritage as a catalyst of creative entrepreneurship was a strategic partnership between five European general high schools.The coordinator was the Croatian school and partner schools were from Sweden,Spain,Portugal and Greece. All partners in this project were general high schools in which there was no strategic teaching of entrepreneurial skills, as is the situation in most European general high schools. Due to the fact that in the last years the European Commission defined entrepreneurship education as a key factor for the development of individuals, economy and society in general and since year 2018 was marked as the European year of cultural heritage the main aim of our project was the launch of entrepreneurship initiative in general high schools using the topic of cultural heritage as a catalyst.The objectives of the project were the following: to train teachers on the topic of entrepreneurship, to provide students with the basic skills of today’s popular small businesses such as graphic design, photography, blogging/vlogging, handmade crafts, tour guiding and event/project planning and to practice these new basic skills using cultural heritage as the topic.This way students were supposed to learn how to create entrepreneurial opportunities in their communities and foster their future employability chances.The project was also supposed to generate connections between schools and local communities and improve students and teachers’ ICT,English,intercultural and social skills.Each school formed a project team which consisted of around 5 teachers and 20 students(aged 15-18) who were directly involved in project activities.However,through peer teaching we included a big number of students in each school(depending on the overall number of students in each school). All students participating directly in the project were chosen through interviews and motivational letters and opportunity was also given to students with fewer opportunities. At the beginning of the project Croatian coordinator provided teacher training for three teachers from each partner school-the training was delivered by Croatian teachers who developed their own course on entrepreneurship in general high schools.There were four short-term student exchanges, each attended by four students and two accompanying teachers. Between exchanges students attended local trainings on project subtopics done by local entrepreneurs and teachers, they did peer teaching and applied their new skills using different aspects of cultural heritage as a topic.Each student exchange had a subtopic and during these exchanges students presented their work done between mobilities, exchanged their knowledge on six subtopics (graphic design, photography,blogging/vlogging, handmade crafts, tour guiding,event/project planning), applied their knowledge in the context of the host country and presented their creative work to students of the host country. All activities were carried out through a combination of theoretical and applied units, students learned by doing through hands-on, real life experiences. Collaborative learning was applied in most activities, both locally and cross-culturally. The main results were one structured course for teachers on developing students’ entrepreneurial skills, students’ creative products, such as photos, blogs/vlogs, graphic design products, handmade crafts, guided tours, organizing events;a digital good practice guide on creative entrepreneurship through cultural heritage,a film about creative entrepreneurship in general high schools,a Wix website of the project,updated regularly with the results,a Facebook page,where students’ creative works were shared, four Madmagz online journal editions (two in each project year),a project brochure , a poster and a logo, an eTwinning project and two evaluation reports. The project has had impact on schools in terms of launching the entrepreneurship initiative in each school and integration of these main project activities (teaching basic skills of creative businesses) into standard curricula of subjects such as ICT, Arts and English. The project was also a starting point for some new Erasmus+ KA1 and KA2 projects.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 120549 Eur

Project Coordinator

I Gimnazija Osijek & Country: HR

Project Partners

• IES PUÇOL
• Agrupamento de Escolas de Santa Maria da Feira
• 4th Geniko Lykeio Zografou
• Gudmundrå skola