ENVISIONAlliances is a 2022-2025 project at the crossroads of higher education, curriculum development, business and innovation. It is funded under the Erasmus+ programme, action Alliances for Innovation.
ENVISIONAlliances will serve primarily to develop a novel learning framework that ensures the bringing together of private enterprises with researchers and academics, through the organisation of several matchmaking and networking initiatives with a focus on encouraging mutual learning, collaboration and joint-venture creation that combines the theoretical expertise of the researchers with the practical knowledge and skills of the experienced entrepreneur. ENVISIONAlliances will work with universities to promote this learning framework workspace to make it as accessible as possible for academics and researchers, with a focus on long-term sustainability to guarantee accessibility to future academics.
The proposed framework centres around the organisation several mentoring opportunities in the form of Entrepreneurship Residency Programmes for researchers, lecturers, other university staff and even Master/Doctoral candidates and Post-doctoral researchers, where these academics will get the chance to partner with an established commercial entity or promising startup, and both observe and participate in the day-to-day activities that are involved in being part of a private company. These residencies will be supported by preparatory courses that will enhance the effectiveness of the experience. By immersing them in a business environment, these residencies will impart on the academics the practical skills, attitudes and behaviours relevant to an entrepreneurial mind-set.
ENVISIONAlliances will also lead to the creation of a new higher education curriculum and course on Entrepreneurial Competence, that will deliver the insights and entrepreneurial skills developed through the project in line with the EntreComp Framework, to the next generation of researchers and business leaders, particularly in the fields of STEM with a focus on green and digital sectors.
Partnership
1 Turku University, Finland (coordinator)
2 Acceler8, Malta
3 ACROSSLIMITS, Malta
4 Maribor University, Slovenia
5 Technical University Delft, The Netherlands
6 SAXION Foundation, TheNetherlands
7 University of Murcia, Spain
8 Arcinno oy, Finland
9 Web2Learn, Greece