Ulysses Contest – Digital Student Competition on Family Business Erasmus Project

Project Title

Ulysses Contest – Digital Student Competition on Family Business

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 : Partnerships for Digital Education Readiness

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Enterprise, industry and SMEs (incl. entrepreneurship); ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

The need for acquiring entrepreneurial and digital competences is not limited to learners seeking careers as commercial entrepreneurs or as employees within the IT sector, but rather extends to “all walks of life” as EU policy makers have repeatedly emphasized [1,2,3,4]. Consequently, the importance of entrepreneurship education (EE) and digital education (DE) as integral part within university studies has been prioritised in recent years [4,5]. Despite those recognised needs on the policy side, attention given to EE and DE in higher education (HE) programmes still remains rather elusive [6,7]. In fact, the Covid 19 pandemic merciless shows that DE, in particular, requires a place at the nucleus of academia and cannot be dealt with as side issue at the dawn of the digital age [4].
Ultimately, existing shortcomings with regards to EE and DE within HE causes a sub-optimal exploitation of entrepreneurial potentials as well as a substandard deployment of digital technologies at later stage of careers (in academia or world of work outside HE).

Our project “Ulysses Contest – Digital Student Competition on Family Business” (ULYSSES) has been designed to address these deficits. It focuses on university students that are keen to gather practical entrepreneurial learning experiences and want to enhance their digital skills. ULYSSES will provide this combined chance by setting up the 1st digital European student competition that focuses explicitly on family businesses (FB).

To put this into practice, sustainable and regional university-industry interaction networks will be built that input well-prepared, complex, and real business challenges into the Ulysses Contest (IO1, IO2, IO4). The competition is based on an innovative virtual learning and teaching platform (IO3) that will be tailored to the functional needs of the contest, as well as to the individual user/target groups (students, educators, family business stakeholder) requirements.
As such, ULYSSES will drive change for the benefit of a new form of digital entrepreneurship education within the involved partner institutions and beyond. Moreover, ULYSSES will:
a) Propagate the exploitation of the European Frameworks on Digital Competences (DigComp) and Entrepreneurship Competence (EntreComp) inside HE
b) Develop scalable online open-educational resources that focus on fostering digital and entrepreneurship competences
c) Catalyse digital readiness and entrepreneurial competence deliverance of involved students and educators

Despite demonstrating resilience, optimism and agility, most family businesses have been exposed to unseen health, safety, and welfare challenges by the COVID-19 pandemic by severe disruptions to their core operations. We believe Erasmus+ projects can have a limited impact for mitigating effects of Covid 19. The Ulysses Contest may help by:
d) (Re-)vitalising and strengthening industry-university interactions,
e) Finding practical solutions to pressing business problems,
f) Raising awareness for challenges and skill requirements of FB among academia,
g) Introducing FB to a talented pool of potential employees,
h) Creating exchange among FB stakeholder on the basis of the Ulysses virtual platform (IO3).

Methodologically, the project design of ULYSSES is based on a co-creational industry-university interaction as recommended by the EC (6). The project will be realised within a 2-year long, interdisciplinary collaboration (4 HEI, 2 SME,) and is expected to unfold impact across 4 EU Countries involving 120+ students, 40+ educators, 10+ FB stakeholders.

PARTICIPANTS
● University of Szeged, Hungary – lead partner, experienced in entrepreneurship education
● Management Center Innsbruck, Austria – experienced partner in entrepreneurship education with well-established relationship in the region
● Libera Università di Bolzano, Italy – experienced partner with a dedicated centre for Family Business Management
● University of Vienna – experienced partner with a dedicated research group for Family Business internationalization and case study research methodology.
● Univations Gmbh, Germany – experienced partner with several lead roles in entrepreneurship education Erasmus+ KA2 projects
● Fundus Agentur, Austria – communication and networking agency

[1] EC 2014: Entrepreneurship Education. A guide for Educators.
[2] EC 2013: Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan.
[3] EC OECD 2015: Entrepreneurship in Education.
[4] EC 2020: Digital Education Plan 2021-2027.
[5] EC 2019: Education & Training Monitor.
[6] EC 2018: The state of university-business cooperation in Europe.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 205930 Eur

Project Coordinator

SZEGEDI TUDOMANYEGYETEM & Country: HU

Project Partners

• MCI MANAGEMENT CENTER INNSBRUCK INTERNATIONALE HOCHSCHULE GMBH
• UNIVATIONS GMBH
• LIBERA UNIVERSITA DI BOLZANO
• Agentur fundus GmbH
• UNIVERSITAT WIEN