Abstract:

University–industry cooperation is a standard activity; however, nowadays, both parties are experiencing cultural change; polarization has grown in society and among industries. Midcap and larger companies have the resources and personnel to track new RDI projects and their results. Nevertheless, SMEs and startups lack that possibility. Increasing the skills of growth companies with current training and education solutions is too slow for companies. Therefore, they respond poorly to the skills needs of startups and SMEs in increasing their responsiveness and readiness for change, especially as they recover from the Covid-19 crisis.
This paper presents the methods to promote the rapid transformation capacity of growth companies' (startups and SMEs) founders and personnel. It was implemented within the frames of the LAB Growth project by developing and testing service content that focuses on integrating competence-enhancing implementations into business growth. The methodology of the trainings arranged for RDI personnel and business representatives included simulations, coaching, mentoring, instructor-led training, and case studies. The feedback from participants of the training and their results have been collected using surveys, interviews, focus groups, and observation.

The results of the study show that the increasing competence of employees of growth companies should be closely linked to the various stages of a company's development, emphasizing quick implementation and impact. Understanding the target groups' needs allowed the development of the training that provided participants with a solid knowledge base for sales, well-established routines for interaction, and presentation and sales skills for the company's growth phase. The development skills of entrepreneurs and the personnel of companies were also significantly improved. The novelty value of the project is based on the service content and process, which ensures easy-access, usable, adaptive, and rapid-response competence development. Results of the project include over 15 startup-university collaboration projects with fast and relevant results. The study results will be helpful to RDI professionals of HEIs to confront, help and collaborate faster and with better results with SMEs. As a result, HEIs will be able to improve university-industry cooperation with tested methods and localize them effectively.

Keywords:

Entrepreneurship, University-Industry Cooperation, Projects, Entrepreneurship Curriculum.