International Entrepreneurship Network for PhD and PhD Supervisor Training Erasmus Project

Project Title

International Entrepreneurship Network for PhD and PhD Supervisor Training

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development); New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Overcoming skills mismatches (basic/transversal)

Project Summary

Extant evidence demonstrates that doctoral schools offer training for early stage researchers (ESRs) that prepares ESRs predominantly for employment in academia. Although wider employability is often a stated objective within Doctoral Schools it is in practice largely neglected. Hence there are serious gaps and mismatches between knowledge, skills and competences ESRs acquire and those that they need for employment outside academia.
IETN targets (1) early stage researchers (ESRs); (2) doctoral supervisors (DS); and (3) trainers of supervisors (TOS).
IETN objectives are to:
(1) Enhance the quality of ESR entrepreneurial training, ESRs’ skills and competences and increase ESRs’ employability outside academia by developing and implementing high quality, state-of-the-art training program for ESRs.
(2) Enhance the quality, relevance and professionalism of supervision and supervision training for faculty members engaged in doctoral supervision/or doctoral supervisor training by developing and implementing a training program for DS and TOS supervisors. The training will be innovative participant centred and at all stages involve critical review and evaluation by participants and facilitators overall objective being to enhance ESRs’ entrepreneurial employability.
(3) Create sustainable structures to foster a transnational community of scholars passionate about International Entrepreneurship, Authentic Leadership and Training for the Jobs of the Future through innovative, high quality, cross-disciplinary PhD and supervisor training
These objectives are achieved by developing and implementing high quality, state-of-the-art training courses for ESRs on ‘Authentic Leadership’ (5ECTS), and doctoral supervisors and trainers of supervisors on ‘Authentic Leadership and Supervision Facilitation’ (3ECTS) during which issues concerning key knowledge, skills and competences of ESRs are evaluated and innovative pedagogies towards enhancing ESRs’ employability outside academia are put forward. The developed training courses will be formally approved and institutionalized by the doctoral schools of the project partners. The project objectives are also met by developing and publishing a handbook on ‘Preparing Doctoral Researchers for Entrepreneurial Employment’ that is a comprehensive handbook for future ESR, DS and TOS training and best practices in higher education, containing, but not limited to, training material for learners and educators, guidelines and best practices for institutions, decision makers and faculty.
Aalborg University (AAU), Lappeenranta University (LUT), Linnaeus University (LINNÆUS), Siegen University (SIEGEN) and University of Tartu (UT) created this consortium to implement these objectives. IETN partners have a rich and successful cooperation experience, cooperating along various dimensions, such as: training of doctoral students, hosting joint doctoral training events, writing and publishing, supervision of doctoral students, application for EU funding, implementing EU projects, and attending international conferences. The consortium represents a combination of complementary competences, experiences and expertise to deliver all aspects of the project. What makes this project innovative inter alia is the diversity and complementarity of existing training pedagogies that each partner has and that will be assessed and combined as necessary to develop and implement the intellectual outputs, for example, Problem Based Learning (AAU) and Vocational Didactics (SIEGEN) pedagogies; theorising and theory building methods and techniques (AAU, LUT); innovation and entrepreneurship (AAU, LINNÆUS, UT). All partners have rich networks of non-academic partners that will be involved in the process of the development and implementation of the training courses. IETN is coordinated by AAU.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 317171 Eur

Project Coordinator

AALBORG UNIVERSITET & Country: DK

Project Partners

• Universität Siegen
• LAPPEENRANNAN-LAHDEN TEKNILLINEN YLIOPISTO LUT
• LINNEUNIVERSITETET
• TARTU ULIKOOL