Virtual Open Innovation Lab Erasmus Project

Project Title

Virtual Open Innovation Lab

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

Rapid developments in digitalization creates a pressure on firms to innovate & transform their businesses by implementing digital technologies & business models. Digital transformation is challenging for most firms that strive with understanding the opportunities & consequences of digitalization; many have difficulties in envision how they should transform the processes & business model. These difficulties are particularly demanding for small firms due to their general lack of resources, knowledge & skills.
In order to accelerate the digital transformation of SMEs, higher education institutions need to adopt effective strategies to develop advanced digital skills in their students, future employees of these companies. For their part, companies & business associations need flexible tools to assist in reconverting the workers’ skills, in the context of work or in vocational training. Therefore, the target groups of this project are educators & students in Universities, young workers & entrepreneurs/managers of micro, small & medium enterprises – MSME.
The project VOIL – Virtual Open Innovation Lab has two strategic objectives: (1) to raise awareness about the potential of emerging technologies for the digital transformation of micro, small & medium businesses, & (2) to design a pedagogical model for simulation-based learning of advanced digital competencies.

To achieve these objectves the project will develop 5 Outputs. The O1 – Digital transformation toolkit provides the knowledge about the best practices that have come to affirm in the industry relative to the design of digital transformation strategies and co-creation of innovative solutions. This knowledge will then be used to produce O2 – Digital transformation curriculum, which will guide educators who want to develop training programs focusing on the development of advanced digital skills.

The O3-Simulation Resource Pack will include teaching notes that will guide the learning of emerging technologies and / or digital transformation impacts through the use of simulators. The VOIL platform (O4) corresponds to the simulation-based learning environment that will allow for the development of the advanced digital skills. O5 – Implementation and validation report is an essential output as it contains the partner experience and the project memory. This information will support the use of the VOIL platform beyond the project as well as future developments including the creation of mixed reality learning environments.

To develop the planned outputs, the project teams will carry out several project management & implementation activities, intellectual output development activities and evaluation & dissemination activities. All partners have actively participated in the initial design of the project, adopting a flexible system with clear tasks & responsibilities. All partners will contribute to each phase of the project. All partners will manage the project’s publicity and information jointly with relevant inputs and support. The project has a joint management team, formed with participation of all partners during the kick off meeting, ensuring successful management and sustainable impact. Further each partner will select experts (trainers, researchers, facilitators) most appropriate for implementation of each project activity. The coordination team will have regular meetings, as whole team or in smaller teams, depending on the needs of the project and development phase. For a smooth and constructive cooperation constant communication is envisioned between the partners using meetings, email, phone calls, web conferencing etc. The project consists of a number of main outputs and activities, each focused on key activities and actions of the project that are necessary for the most qualitative and efficient materialization of the project and fulfillment of its objectives. For the project management we will use the proposed by the European Commission Methodology for the Project Management (PM2).

The immediate impact of the VOIL project will be empowering universities to develop advanced digital transformation competencies in their students and educators.. We expect to involve about 300 participants in the pilot tests & multiplier events in the various partner countries. For the long-term impact, & taking into account the planned dissemination activities, we have estimated that in the countries of the partnership a high number of young workers will be informed through the outputs in their native languages. Another expected long-term impact is to provide educators in universities with a curriculum to guide the design of study programs & courses to develop advanced digital transformation skills. We envisage that the project results have the R&D potential of informing and engaging researchers from the fields of engineering, management and social sciences in discussions and studies focusing the use of simulators to experiment and learn about emerging technologies.

Project Website

https://www.voil.eu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 290691 Eur

Project Coordinator

WESTFAELISCHE WILHELMS-UNIVERSITAET MUENSTER & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Hochschule RheinMain
• KAUNO TECHNOLOGIJOS UNIVERSITETAS
• UNIVERSIDAD DE LA IGLESIA DE DEUSTO ENTIDAD RELIGIOSA
• UNIVERSITETET I AGDER
• UNIVERSITAET GRAZ
• UNIVERSIDADE DO MINHO
• INSTITUTE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT