Strategic partnership project on sustainable entrepreneurship competence for managing Start Ups Erasmus Project

Project Title

Strategic partnership project on sustainable entrepreneurship competence for managing Start Ups

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 vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Enterprise, industry and SMEs (incl. entrepreneurship); Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

In a highly competitive economy, a good idea is not always enough to develop a successful business project. Still 9 out of 10 start-ups usually fail. One of the causes of failure is the lack of managerial skills of start-uppers and entrepreneurs, who are not equipped and prepared enough to launch and sustain their ideas on the market.

7 partners from 6 European countries (Ireland, Spain, Poland, Italy, Germany and Hungary), united by a general objective of business support, decided to bring together their respective complementary experience to develop a new educational proposal answering to the training need identified.

The main objective of EuroSTART project was to discuss a common proposal of competences required by start-uppers and entrepreneurs to become efficient managers, as well as to propose educational resources for this target, allowing them to up skill and becoming more proficient in their managerial tasks, thus achieving better success in their projects. The second objective of EuroSTART was to provide entrepreneur supporting organisations with further tools and VET materials to be used with the entrepreneurs, thus reaching the first objective of improvement of competences and successful businesses.

After working on the preparation of competences Fact sheet and a Training Road map, partners determined which were the most needed competences for start-up management. After discussions, 6 main competences were selected:

– Creativity
– Cooperation and teamwork
– Financial and economic literacy
– Leadership and initiative
– Intellectual property
– Project management and planning

Then, partners developed specific training contents responding to the competences foreseen, each partner using its specific fields of expertise to contribute to the development of the course. The different modules of the courses were divided in chapters including introduction to the topic and training goals, theoretical contents, illustrations, proposals for activities and evaluations. Then, they developed an online platform to deliver the course with interactive exercises and evaluation system, including a social module, as a meeting place for start-ups, entrepreneurs and stakeholders for project pitching and peer-to-peer learning.

EuroSTART project relied on a participation methodology, engaging the target group all along the project implementation, with events organised in each country. It will also made a strong use of ICT as a catalyst for the project activities impact. A strong focus was given on international activities, being in line with an international scenario for smart growth and boosting creativity through intercultural diversity.

Throughout the project lifetime, EuroSTART involved a large audience over Europe, engaging participants from partners’ countries to take part in different training activities and events, at key stage of the project implementation to review and validate the development of training materials. 23 start-uppers and entrepreneurs went to Valencia accompanied by 6 staff members for a training activity onsite. More 275 entrepreneurs, start-uppers and supporting organisations participated in at least one EuroSTART event. In total, partners involved about 500 learners in the EuroSTART platform during the project life. The train the trainer tool was evaluated by 70 trainers engaged in the project.

The main project result was the creation of a complete set of educational materials for start-ups and entrepreneurs, including an e-learning platform, social and interactive modules, as well as a teacher manual. The expected impact on the target group, consisting in an improvement of the management competences, and thus better efficiency and success in the launch of activities was reached.

As long term benefit, EuroSTART project expects to contribute to the EU2020 strategy encouraging an economy based on innovation and high technology, thanks to better prepared start-uppers and entrepreneurs for the management of competitive and proficient businesses, as well as to the ET2020 strategy, contributing to the development of qualitative open educational resources.

Project Website

https://eurostart-project.eu

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 255309,52 Eur

Project Coordinator

DUBLIN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE (INCORPORATED) & Country: IE

Project Partners

• DANMAR COMPUTERS SP ZOO
• MARKEUT SKILLS SOCIEDAD LIMITADA
• Budapesti Vállalkozásfejlesztési Közalapítvány
• CONSORZIO MATERAHUB INDUSTRIE CULTURALI E CREATIVE
• BWCON GMBH
• INSTALOFI LEVANTE SL