Strategy For Change Erasmus Project

Project Title

Strategy For Change

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: Social dialogue; Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

The Project has established a formalised transnational training programme to prepare students for carrying out effective social innovation projects in the local community. Social Innovation is defined as ‘new ideas (products, services and models) that simultaneously meet social needs and create new social relationships or collaborations’(Grisolia and Ferragina, 2015). The global field of social innovation is growing exponentially. All over the world there are organisations and institutions incorporating social innovation into strategies to combat societal problems such as ageing and poverty. However, while universities are often actively engaged in researching this phenomenon, and some courses have been developed in areas such as social enterprise, there are few specific initiatives that proactively involve students in social innovation programmes within their local communities. This project sought to develop a more formalised, transnational, extracurricular training programme that would incorporate the most advanced processes developed in embedding social innovation, combining partner universities’ experiences in networks such as ASHOKA – http://ashokau.org – and DESIS- http://www.desis-network.org.
Five Universities took part in the project – Glasgow Caledonian University, Dublin City University, Technology University Eindhoven, University of Aveiro and Interactive Institute Swedish ICT and also counted on the participation of two of the Universities’ Student Associations (GCUSA at GCU and OSL at DCU). The project met a series of specific objectives:
– develop awareness and skills among students for effective community action
– incorporate entrepreneurship, ICT and leadership and other transversal skills as a means to instigate change and address societal challenges
– create effective learning pathways – especially for widening access students to benefit from the opportunities offered through community engagement and social responsibility, raising completion rates and enhancing employability prospects.
– benchmark students’ social innovation activities within five institutions, carry out virtual and physical mobility for exchange of best practice
– design a formalised transnational, extracurricular programme structure with a view to future accreditation.
– ensure a sustainable model by introducing a virtuous circle through training of trainers feeding back their knowledge and experience into the programme.

The project activities consisted of a benchmarking of needs and best practices within the Univeristy, design of a programme and course materials including ICT tools, and validation of the Programme through a three stage programme including transnational mobility.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 364964 Eur

Project Coordinator

THE GLASGOW CALEDONIAN UNIVERSITY & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Glasgow Caledonian University Students’ Association
• Dublin City University Student finance Committee ltd t/a Office of Student
• UNIVERSIDADE DE AVEIRO
• TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT EINDHOVEN
• DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY
• RISE INTERACTIVE INSTITUTE AB