Fostering use of technical spaces in higher education Erasmus Project

Project Title

Fostering use of technical spaces in higher education

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; Creativity and culture

Project Summary

The maker culture is a contemporary culture emphasizing learning-through-doing or active learning in a social environment. Maker movement puts power in the hands of the people to fund, design, prototype, produce, manufacture, distribute, market and sell their own goods. This new trendy movement impacts global manufacturing as creation shifts geographically to local, philosophically to sustainability and legally to force the adaptation of new IP laws as people move from consuming to creating and sharing. The Circular / Sharing Economy impacts core business models and higher education (HE) must be ready to address the change by developing relevant competencies of graduates in order to secure innovation and growth. Not only is 3D printing the main technology for prototyping, it is also hyped as the technology to bring about the next industrial revolution. According to Verified Market Research, the Global 3D Printing Market was valued at USD 8.08 Billion in 2017 and is projected to reach USD 49.74 Billion by 2025, growing at a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 25.5% from 2018 to 2025. The comprehensive research has been done by project consortium analyzing around 100 university makerspaces, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Technical University of Denmark, Aalto University and other partners. The conclusions showed that similar structures are emerging rapidly but they lack clear recognition frameworks, access guidance, strategic integration of university makerspaces into study process, networking between universities, public and private makerspaces and businesses.

Thus, the aim of the HEI MAKERS project was to increase innovation and creativity through partnership of HEIs and technical spaces, leading to trans-disciplinary approaches and new teaching methods in HE, availability of open resources for formal and non formal education, better entrepreneurial and creativity skills of graduates. The specific objectives sought by the project were fostering collaboration of HEIs, university and private makerspaces, and other businesses; amplifying technological entrepreneurship and technical creativity as key competences; promoting innovative education methods; increasing open resources based learning opportunities; recognising competencies gained through active learning at makerspace as per programmes developed; testing the above-mentioned collaboration concept and ensuring sustainability of results; identifying and attracting new players to join the next stages of the HEI MAKERS initiative.

Project partners developed 5 intellectual outputs. Guidelines for HEIs, analyzing how practically collaborate with technical spaces to increase quality of higher education, revealed internal challenges and lack of collaboration among faculties within the same HE institution. Training modules on technological entrepreneurship and technical creativity in 3D printing and rapid prototyping were made available on Moodle for HEIs to improve curricula and for technical spaces – use as self learning / non formal education materials. Intensive study programme as HEI MAKERS international summer school was organized to facilitate the uptake of collaboration concept. As a result, “Makers academy” was launched by Vilnius Gediminas Technical University inviting students to gain rapid prototyping skills already in Spring 2020. The plugin for open code software “Blender” allowing more efficient 3D printing was made available online for the Blender community with approx. 8 million downloads annually. Partners organised 6 multiplier events involving 200+ representatives of the target group with highly positive feedback.

The direct target group of the project was HEIs, their students, and technical spaces. HEIs were represented in the consortium through LT, LV and RO universities, covering 50+ thousand students. These are the countries with less advanced HE (as per QS World University Rankings) in Europe who need to employ modern teaching strategies in order to catch up with the leaders. Association of technical spaces (TEA, LT) and a private makerspace Ludor (RO) represented technical spaces and ensured their involvement in the project through a number of stakeholders. Indirect target group was business and business support organisations, which employ skilled students or host startups in acceleration or business incubation programmes, represented by Inventya (UK) and SSVSTP (LT).

Project HEI MAKERS will continue encouraging more HEIs to initiate collaboration with makerspaces, re-think their study programmes to employ innovative training methods and address the challenges of XXI century labour market. Project’s outputs opened up new learning opportunities through practical application of entrepreneurial and prototyping skills, which can further on involve and lead to the commercialisation of new services and products, to attracting potential investors, to creation of global start-ups and spin-offs and thus growing economy.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 257279 Eur

Project Coordinator

SAULETEKIO SLENIO MOKSLO IR TECHNOLOGIJU PARKAS & Country: LT

Project Partners

• VILNIAUS GEDIMINO TECHNIKOS UNIVERSITETAS
• Techniniu erdviu asociacija
• INVENTYA LTD
• SC Ludor Engineering SRL
• RIGAS TEHNISKA UNIVERSITATE
• UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI