House of Brains Erasmus Project

Project Title

House of Brains

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 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Enterprise, industry and SMEs (incl. entrepreneurship); Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education

Project Summary

The House of Brains project is the outcome of several years of cooperation among the project partners and, of course, the result of their expertise. The basic aim of the project is the creation of a training program that unify businesses and academic world, to enhance the knowledge of the entrepreneurial world, by promoting a real and peer to peer collaboration between the two worlds and by covering the gap between what the universities provides in terms of knowledge and skills what the labor market demands.
As very often, learners don’t really meet enterprises’ needs at the end of their studies, the project has been formulated around the basic idea that a new training path was necessary to be jointly managed by universities and enterprises, accounting for the needs of both, making the training process easily accessible and user- friendly, offering the students the opportunity to practically experiment what they are learning, and introducing into the university programs new elements in terms of experience of entrepreneurs, and technical “know how” that allows youth to be find employment upon completion of the training. For this reason, scope of the HoB project was developing not only a new model of training path, but also an online learning environment (http://www.hobplatform.org) where the HoB pilot online course has been implemented.
The HoB partnership was composed by 10 organizations, which have a wide experience and are key actors in the frame of the objective to which the project is focused on.
The LP, Unioncamere Veneto has strong and long experience in managing EU-funded projects in many different sectors.
Verona University is one of the most advanced in Italy regarding the implementation of applied researches and the development of specific training paths for entrepreneurship. Consorzio IES and CE.Sv.I. both provide financial services to the enterprises and specific training courses aimed to entrepreneurs.
The German participants, the Hochschule Fulda and Inter.Research have a wide experience of the Dual Training System and run high training paths where companies have already high influence.
Spanish partners, Camara de Comercio de Cantabria (CCIN) and Fundacion Leonardo Torres Quevedo (FLTQ), have a relevant experience in boosting research activities and transferring the results to the business sector.
The Slovenian partners, the University of Primorska and the Technology Park Ljubljana are leading entity and key national stakeholder in the development of innovative and knowledge-based entrepreneurship.
Concerning the implementation of the House of Brains project, following activities have been undertaken:
•Activity1 (O1): Context analysis and good practices detection. In each involved country, a national report has produced with a briefly description of the national university training system, the national policy legislation and, the description of the forms of collaboration/initiatives between industry and academic.
•Activity 2 (O2): Definition of the Training offer. Each project partner interviewed local stakeholders to gain understanding of the competences which employers expect from young graduates.
•Activity 3 (O2): Definition of Training methodologies. Each project partner has contributed in developing the HoB training path following the indications of Hochschule Fulda that led the process of definition of the training offer.
•Activity 4 (O2): Definition of the technical feature and ICT support tools. Consorzio IES with the support of ICT experts has realized and coordinated the development of the virtual environment.
•Activity 5 (O2+O3): Realization of the HoB Platform, recognition and validation of the qualifications with an EQF approach under the supervision of University of Verona.
•Activity 6: Follow – up. Communication and dissemination of the outcome of the HoB project and open discussion about possibilities of sustainability for the HoB virtual environment.
In terms of results, the House of Brains project not only achieved to set up the online platform where three pilot online courses let participants interactively and in a multicultural and virtual environment stimulate their own creativity and soft skills; but gave the opportunity to develop and spread the entrepreneurial competencies and soft skills among youth and graduates.
Concerning the longer – term benefits, the House of Brains project is mainly focused on the development and assessment of transversal skills linked to entrepreneurial competencies. Thanks to the experience of the online pilot trials, HoB project has laid the groundwork to start the discussion on the entrepreneurial mindset of competencies that could be potentially used in any educational setting as well as in a workplace. Not only, beside the discussion about the possibilities of sustainability for the HoB virtual environment, partners are interested in the capitalization of the project outcomes for future research/project opportunities

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 377703,8 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIONE REGIONALE DELLE CAMERE DI COMMERCIO INDUSTRIA, ARTIGIANATO E AGRICOLTURA DEL VENETO & Country: IT

Project Partners

• TEHNOLOSKI PARK LJUBLJANA DOO
• Consorzio I.E.S. – Inclusione Europa Sviluppo Soc. Coop. Sociale
• FUNDACIÓN LEONARDO TORRES QUEVEDO
• UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI VERONA
• UNIVERZA NA PRIMORSKEM UNIVERSITA DEL LITORALE
• Ce.Sv.I – Centro per lo Sviluppo e l’Innovazione delle Imprese – Società Cooperativa
• INTER. RESEARCH INSTITUT FUR INTERDISZIPLINARE FORSCHUNG E.V.