Skilled Business Leaders for Skilled Europe Erasmus Project

Project Title

Skilled Business Leaders for Skilled Europe

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 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Overcoming skills mismatches (basic/transversal); Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment

Project Summary

Joining strengths of 7 higher education institutions and one management development network, the overall aim of the project was to provide higher education institutions (HEI) with a comprehensive set of insights, guidelines and materials that would help develop more relevant and innovative management education offerings and study processes, based on the real needs of businesses and economies and as a result stimulate reduction of management skills mismatch across EU and provide enterprises with better skilled employees, decreasing their investments in new employee trainings and increasing their competitiveness on local, regional and international levels.

We have explored, identified and assessed management and leadership development needs by focusing on:
– challenges faced by businesses (particularly with respect to management and leadership issues);
– how leadership development may help address challenges faced;
– critical evaluation of the results achieved and impacts made by management education to date;
– recommendations for learning partners, including specific guidelines, materials, and staff training.

To achieve the aims and goals of the project, we have develop Intellectual Outputs “Cross-country report” and “Guidelines for management and leadership skills development”. Developed outputs provide insights into current and future business challenges and related management and leadership development needs, as well as specific instructions, best practice examples and inspiration for HEIs for improving management education curricula, teaching/learning materials, as well as teaching tools, methods and techniques. This will help to provide more adequate and labour market needs-based education, contribute to skills mismatch and shortage reduction, as well as ensure long-term project results accessibility and usability.

During the project implementation phase, several activities were undertaken to support development of intellectual outputs and to support dissemination of project results.

To support development of intellectual outputs and train faculty and staff directly involved with the project, 4 short-term joint staff training events were organised during the project implementation period.They covered topics of (1) program management and education process, (2) trends in management education, (3) digital technologies in teaching and learning, and (4) case writing and teaching.

The most important project outputs are:
-A cross-country report publication with seven individual country reports and a cross country chapter covering the most important findings
-Guidelines for management and leadership skills development publication drawing from insights of the
-A case study collection including descriptive cases covering specific issues that companies face, as well as a collection of seven teaching case studies including teaching notes, ready to be used in classrooms.

5 Multiplier events were organised at an regional and international level in order to support dissemination and increase impact of the project results beyond the project consortium.

Project management activities were supported by regular online meetings as well as 5 international meetings where all partners met to report, discuss, plan and coordinate project activities.

Significant impact was achieved with all participating institutions reporting improvements in the covered fields in a survey conducted between project partners. All multiplier events were well visited by important stakeholder groups such as educators, representatives of HEIs, companies and business practitioners as well as decision makers from public institutions. With one of the goals being to raise employability of students, the impact cannot be measured directly as it would need a longitudinal study, but participating faculty members did report improved teaching methods, modified curricula and raised student satisfaction at their courses so long term benefits are expected. With better prepared students, we also expect to decrease the need for company investments in new employee trainings.

The project already spurred development of several additional outputs including a scientific monograph on management development needs, a manifesto on the future of management development, improvement of existing management development programs and development of two new programs on case writing and teaching and on digital technologies in education.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 190141 Eur

Project Coordinator

CEEMAN USTANOVA ZA RAZVOJ MENEDZMENTA V SREDNJI IN VZHODNI EVROPI & Country: SI

Project Partners

• SVEUCILISTE U ZAGREBU
• IEDC-Poslovna sola Bled, Fakulteta za podiplomski studij managementa
• RISEBA UNIVERSITY
• AKADEMIA LEONA KOZMINSKIEGO
• EBS EDUCATION OU
• BUDAPESTI CORVINUS EGYETEM
• VILNIAUS UNIVERSITETAS