EU Funded Entrepreneurship Project Inno-EUt+ Announces First-Year Success
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Inno-Eut+, a complementary project of the European University of Technology (EUt+), which aims to increase the innovation and entrepreneurship capacity of seven EUt+ partners, including TU Dublin, has announced its first-year results. The €1.2 million project aims to provide formal and informal, inclusive entrepreneurship education programmes that will enable Universities to inspire, mentor, and support aspiring entrepreneurs among a broad group of students and researchers.
Dr Deirdre McQuillan, Project Team Leader, European University of Technology, explains the origin of the project.
Ireland has been particularly successful at fostering entrepreneurship through a range of supports provided by Enterprise Ireland and other state institutions, but with Inno-EUt+, we are bringing together the most successful innovation practices across eight EU countries to increase the number of aspiring entrepreneurs and spin-offs created by students and researchers.
Results
Inno-EUt+ is adding value to the classical technological education EUt+ students receive to nurture a new generation of innovators, which has culminated in institutional improvements, contributions to innovation and company growth, partnerships strengthening, and the quality of innovation and entrepreneurship education improved. Consequently, students and academics have been encouraged to think like entrepreneurs to identify useful solutions to local and social problems.
Improving the quality of innovation and entrepreneurship education
A knowledge triangle was successfully integrated with the help of seven EUt+ partners and two non-HEIs partners, Water Alliance and Chrysalis LEAP, both well-known in clean technology innovation and entrepreneurship. In addition, Chrysalis LEAP delivered a Climate Entrepreneurship Training programme for staff by Chrysalis LEAP to help students develop an idea for a climate-focused enterprise. As a result, 100 colleagues and 571 students received, resulting in the generation of more than 150 business concepts across the EUt+ alliance.
To further enhance the positive impact of this training, Inno-EUt+ implemented the Inno-EUt+ Student DemoDays, with the first event taking place in Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena in early 2022, with the best team of students from each University presenting their idea generated during the Climate Entrepreneurship Training program.
Promoting Commitment And Institutional Change
Additionally, during the first year of Inno-EUt+, 62 staff members were trained by Riga Technical University through the Change Agents training module to act as ambassadors for innovation and intrapreneurship within their HEI, as well as to find innovative solutions to existing problems within their organizations.
Educator Handbook For Designing Inclusive Entrepreneurship Courses In Higher Education
Another significant outcome was the Educator handbook for designing inclusive entrepreneurship courses in higher education, which was translated into seven EUt+ languages: English, Spanish, French, Greek, Bulgarian, Latvian, and Romanian. This handbook is a guide and could also be used to train university professors to create entrepreneurship courses for specific minority groups (women, young people, older people, unemployed, immigrants, and people with disabilities). The handbook focuses on two primary approaches: Universal Design for Learning and guiding instructors eager to take part in different entrepreneurial initiatives, as well as aiding specific categories of under-represented groups.
Contributions to innovation and company growth
To support local innovation ecosystems, a customized mentorship program was created and delivered to a few pre-selected start-ups under the Inno-EUt+ Start-up Support Scheme. This programme was supported and mentored by several green tech companies with applications spanning from water treatment solutions to disrupting initiatives for the renewable energy sector.
Two TU Dublin students shared their experience of Inno-EUt+
The best thing for me was the diversity of the team. different ideas and different perspectives to the projects and work. really creative vibrant teams and it was a lot of fun to create projects and business plans - Hanna Duarte, TU Dublin.
I would recommend this for any student because it is so important to put yourself out there to get experiences while you are in university - Remi Mateusz, TU Dublin.
About Inno-EUt+
Innovative European University of Technology (Inno-EUt+) is a project that is part of the new European University of Technology Alliance (EUt+), fully in line with the overall objectives of the Alliance and with a strong focus on integrating innovation and entrepreneurship in higher education institutions. The partners taking part in this project are Technological University of Sofia, Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Technological University Dublin, Troyes University of Technology, Polytechnic University of Cartagena, Riga Technical University and Cyprus University of Technology, together with two external partners, the Water Alliance, a water-related technology innovation hub supporting start-ups and companies in this sector, and Chrysalis LEAP, the first clean technology business idea accelerator in Cyprus and EIT Climate-KIC RIS partner since 2016.Read More Here