Project description in brief

Entrepreneurship is one of the essential pillars of the European economy. The European Union (EU) has been calling for actions in favour to increase entrepreneurship and small-medium company initiatives. Through the ERASMUS Intensive Programme (IP), the participated institutions intend to respond further on this issue. The IP seeks to answer two main questions: how do we create sustainable entrepreneurial initiatives and which conditions does Europe offer to support this? In other saying, the main objectives of the IP are:

• to enhance student’s understanding about the entrepreneurial mindsets in the context of a global economy
• to raise awareness about the political actions that EU provided to increase the opportunities
• to set a foundation of a shared module in business-plan simulation    

Approach

The main target group are students typically enrolled in business and management studies, economics as well as social sciences. Project teachers and staffs as well as members of the local business representatives are also expected to benefit through the information exchanges offered during the various learning and networking activities. 

The didactic approach used in the IP is a simulation-based learning or also known as the scenario-based learning. Through a simulated web-based marketing game and group workshops, the IP will provide an interactive learning environment. Before the students are put in the scenarios, they will prepare a research about the current market potentials and collect their ideas for their marketing initiative. During the game, they will be challenged with various situations or conditions and have to come to a strategic decision. In the end, they have to present about their findings and defend their strategic decisions. The students will be mainly guided by project teachers. In addition, the IP partner institutions will come into contacts with several business representatives and experts on the SME’s policy at the EU level to act as external guides/lecturers.

Planned dissemination of project results

1. In order to provide a publicly accessible platform, a website containing all the project cycles will be launched. This should include: introduction to the project, content, organization, the game, activities as well as the results.

2. Dissemination of the project results at international conferences for business studies and innovative teaching and learning in Europe.

3. The project cycles and reports will also be released through the written and electronic press news of all partner institutions.