Online Learning Modules for Business Process Management (BPM) Advanced Higher Education Erasmus Project

Project Title

Online Learning Modules for Business Process Management (BPM) Advanced 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 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Quality and Relevance of Higher Education in Partner Countries

Project Summary

The project developed a reference curriculum for executive education on Business Process Management (BPM) for Europe. Such a curriculum is strongly needed, because there is a huge demand for competences in BPM, which is about the value creating application of information and communication technology (ICT) in business and society to support excellence and innovation. A number of European initiatives, such as the Digital Agenda 2020 and the eSkills initiatives, showed the need for this project, and the project directly addressed a number of ERASMUS+ priorities, for example, enhancing digital integration in learning, teaching, training, and youth work at various levels, supporting the implementation of reforms in line with the 2011 EU Modernisation Agenda’s priority areas, and supporting the implementation of the 2013 Communication on Opening Up Education, just to name a few.

The objective of the project was to foster BPM executive education in Europe in order to contribute to excellence and innovation in economy and society in general and in industry, banking, administration, education, government, and health care in particular. Since BPM experts are scarce in general and especially in Europe, the goal of the project was to contribute to establishing excutive BPM eduction throughout Europe with the help of a network of leading BPM research institutions.

The project brought together five leading BPM research institutions in Europe. Partners were
– the University of Liechtenstein (Professor Jan vom Brocke) that addresses BPM from a managerial perspective with leading research on business process improvement and innovation,
– the Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (Professor Jan Mendling) that addresses BPM from a methodological perspective with leading research on business process modelling,
– the VU University Amsterdam (Professor Hajo Reijers) that addresses BPM from a technological perspective with leading research on workflow management systems and process mining,
– the Copenhagen Business School (Professor Mathias Trier) that addresses BPM from a social network perspective with leading research on network analysis, and
– the University of Münster (Professor Jörg Becker) that addresses BPM from a semantic and domain-related perspective with leading research on BPM in eGovernment.

The consortium members contributed profound BPM expertise they have gathered through decades of research in the field of BPM. The project consolidated the specialized knowledge of the consortium members by workshops and creativity techniques. The involvement of target users and co-creation techniques facilitated shaping the BPM curriculum towards the specific needs of BPM professionals. All participants had profound experience in managing and conducting large-scale research projects on the European level, and professional project management further contributed to project success.

The results of the project are useful for a wide range of stakeholders, especially because the curriculum is publically available. Apart from traditional elements of BPM, also recent research findings are integrated into the lectures, such as leveraging BPM in order to drive digital innovation to foster global competitiveness of the European economy and society. In particular, the project produced seven intellectual outputs that are ready to use for educational institutions throughout Europe, including a BPM Curriculum Framework, five BPM Curriculum modules, and a final report. These outputs go far beyond the existing educational offerings because they integrate world-leading up-to-date research results and they are tailor made for the needs of EU professionals using innovative virtual and blended learning scenarios.

Beyond achieving the initial goals, the project partners also managed to already set up a first implementation of the reference curriculum they developed. They established a BPM Executive Program that allows professionals to receive a comprehensive education and certification in the field of BPM based on the reference curriculum. The first run of the program will start in February 2018.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 251400 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITAT LIECHTENSTEIN & Country: LI

Project Partners

• STICHTING VU
• COPENHAGEN BUSINESS SCHOOL
• WIRTSCHAFTSUNIVERSITAT WIEN
• WESTFAELISCHE WILHELMS-UNIVERSITAET MUENSTER