Abstract:

While the typical student appreciates the importance of their academic studies, most limit their focus to the disciplines in their field. Motivating students to develop their innovation and entrepreneurship skills is critical to nurture entrepreneurial talent and create sustainable growth and skilled jobs.

Higher Education Institutions (HEI) generally recognise their lack of practical experience in transferring entrepreneurial skills to their students and staff. This need is mainly seen in the teachers and administrative staff, who are the closest to the potential future entrepreneurs and can influence them most. Despite the joint efforts of inviting experts for lectures, workshops, and other activities, this is not sufficient to instil entrepreneurship, provide the necessary tools, and support structures to motivate students to pursue the journey of becoming innovators and entrepreneurs.

INnoVation and ENTrepreneurship in HEIs (INVENTHEI) is a project from the EIT’s HEI Initiative: Innovation Capacity Building for Higher Education launched by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). The consortium composed of 8 entities, 6 of which are renowned European universities, is set to meet this need and to help partner HEIs set up the necessary practices, infrastructure, mechanisms and networks to achieve a high level of impact, respect and credibility among students, researchers, entrepreneurs, peers, civil society, public authorities and private sector stakeholders, at regional, national and international level.

INVENTHEI uses innovation-driven research to connect disciplines and departments in joint projects, increase the number of innovation and entrepreneurship training developed jointly with regional industry, invest in new collaborations with external organisations, and support innovative companies to scale up and contribute to the internationalisation of local innovation districts.

INVENTHEI proposes to implement an Innovation Vision Action Plan (IVAP) by the participating HEIs that includes activities contributing to the pool of “excellent skills and talents” and more “efficient innovation ecosystems” in the manufacturing and health domains. INVENTHEI activities will engage students, contribute to an upskilling of the workforce, and promote a culture for “innovation, entrepreneurship and business transformation” focused on innovation districts. At the same time, proposed activities will support entrepreneurs in building and scaling companies.

Activities are implemented by project partner HEIs organised in the following three pillars: learning and mentoring, learning and teaching structure, and learning and collaboration. The learnings from the experiments practised during the project’s first phase enable the enhanced version of the IVAP. This paper will be focusing on the “Education Pillar” by analysing the learning and mentoring activities performed by each HEI partner during the first phase of the project.

Keywords:

Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Learning, Mentoring, Teaching, Collaboration, research, knowledge, clustering, incubators, accelerators, Manufacturing, Health.