Abstract:

Social entrepreneurship education has gained momentum in the last few decades but it still remains a least understood concept. Social cooperative entrepreneurship leads to the establishment of organisations that promote well-being of employees, develop the local economy and pay special attention to those belonging to vulnerable groups. The importance of social cooperative organisations is increasing as they have the potential to decrease social inequality. Therefore, promoting social entrepreneurship education becomes ever more important in higher education (HE). HE institutions must inculcate the ability to recognize social value-creating opportunities among its students. This paper seeks to discuss a joint education project called MyDigiCoop, which aims to promote social-cooperative entrepreneurship in HE. This international project is funded by Erasmus + and it aims to equip HE professionals with innovative online tools and competencies to foster social-cooperative entrepreneurship among their students. This paper also presents primary aspects of the project like the establishment of an interactive virtual platform and personalized learning paths for the learners, which enhance their social cooperative entrepreneurial mindset and competencies. Furthermore, the preliminary results of the validation of the virtual platform are also presented. The future implications of this project are to strengthen synergies and cooperation among HE institutions, companies, and associations by means of including their needs in the training course developed in this project.

Keywords:

Social cooperative entrepreneurship, interactive virtual platform, learning paths, higher education.