Innovation Cluster for Entrepreneurship Education
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Innovation Cluster for Entrepreneurship Education

This report presents the results from the project “Innovation Cluster for Entrepreneurship Education”, which focused on the mini-company method. Mini-companies combine practical and theoretical learning and stimulate collaboration between school and working life.

The main objective of the project was to analyse the impact of entrepreneurship education and understand what is needed to reach the European goal, which is that every young person should have a practical entrepreneurial experience before leaving school. The research tested what the scenario looks like at 50% penetration among students between 15 and 20 years old and carry out a 27-month field trial using the JA Company Programme in twenty schools (academic as well as vocational) across the five countries.

Some of the project recommendations are listed below:

  • Schools must allow for «enough» time to work on the Company Programme, and students themselves must make an extra effort after school.
  • The teachers need to be given proper access to entrepreneurship education and training in the use of Company Programme or similar programmes. It is also necessary that the teachers receive enough time allotted for teaching and that they are encouraged to work together in teams.
  • Strong links should be established between regional business networks, mentors, schools and JA organisations or similar organisations, to further entrepreneurship education
  •  The Ministries of Education should continue their work on educational reforms adopting a more competence-oriented approach to learning.

The research was led by Eastern Norway Research Institute (ENRI). The lead partner in the consortium, with responsibility for the implementation, was Junior Achievement Europe (JA Europe).

Read the full study here.

 

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This publication has been prepared within INDIGISE project. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the project coordinator and may not always reflect the views of the European Commission or the National Agency.

The Polish Model of a Social Economy with the Financial aspects and Profits at Background – from the General Theory to Practice
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The Polish Model of a Social Economy with the Financial aspects and Profits at Background – from the General Theory to Practice

Within the InDigiSE Erasmus+ project we aim to bring youth the best knowledge and expertise on how to establish and run a successful youth social enterprise. One of the articles we recommend is was published in “Financial Internet Quarterly”,  Volume 15: Issue 3, “The Polish Model of a Social Economy with the Financial aspects and Profits at Background – from the General Theory to Practice” by Katarzyna J. Chojnacka 1     from the Jan Kochanowski University (JKU) in Kielce, Poland.

You can see the abstract below and read the whole text here:

https://content.sciendo.com/configurable/contentpage/journals$002ffiqf$002f15$002f3$002farticle-p29.xml 

 

This article contains main trends, assumptions and thesis about the social economy in Poland, which the author agree with. The main goal of it, is to bring together fundamental facts depicting the situation of the social economy in Poland (in theory and in practice) with the conditions that must be fulfilled in order for it to grow (also from the financial side). In the article, the aspect of profit in a social enterprise, was especially emphasized. To describe the topic the descriptive methods were used. The graphical analysis refers to the last three years, but to understand how the social economy operates in practice, author uses description of the data from 1999 to now, in this paper.

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This publication has been prepared within INDIGISE project. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the project coordinator and may not always reflect the views of the European Commission or the National Agency.

Is Crowdfunding an Appropriate Financial Model for Social Entrepreneurship ?
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Is Crowdfunding an Appropriate Financial Model for Social Entrepreneurship ?

Within the InDigiSE Erasmus+ project we aim to bring youth the best knowledge and expertise on how to establish and run a successful youth social enterprise. One of the popular trends nowadays is the use of crowdfunding tools in your social business. Thus we recommend reading the academic article by Tiziana Priede Bergamini1*, Cristina López-Cózar Navarro2 and Ivan Hilliard3 

titled: ” Is Crowdfunding an Appropriate Financial Model for Social Entrepreneurship ? to learn more about this topic. You can see the introduction below and the full article here:

https://www.abacademies.org/articles/is-crowdfunding-an-appropriate-financial-model-for-social-entrepreneurship-6609.html 

A social entrepreneur is someone who identifies a business opportunity based on solving a social problem (examples would include the integration of people at risk of exclusion, or initiatives aimed at reducing ecological damage) through the development of a business project. Not to be confused with charity or altruism (Kroeger & Weber, 2014), this consists of creating a business model, based on the implementation of an innovative and creative solution, and motivated by a desire to help others and implement positive social change. The social entrepreneur, therefore, aims to provide an effective and efficient responses in order to create financial, social and environmental wealth (Zahra & Wright, 2016), as a starting point for the creation and strengthening of a consolidated and more equitable social and economic order (Hilliard et al., 2014; Priede et al., 2014a, b).

Due to the growth of social enterprises around the world in many different sectors of the economy (Short et al., 2009; Santos, 2012; Zahra & Wright, 2016), research and article publication has grown substantially in recent years (Noruzi et al., 2010; Huybrechts & Nicholls, 2012; Santos, 2013). However, little has been written regarding the financing of this type of entrepreneurship (López-Cózar & Priede, 2015). Similarly, the topic of crowdfunding has received limited attention in academic literature (Belleflamme et al., 2013; Ahlers et al., 2015), and its use in financing social entrepreneurship even less (Lehner, 2013; Lehner & Nicholls, 2014; Calic & Mosakowski, 2016). Therefore, this paper helps to fill this gap in the literature by analyzing social entrepreneurs’ use of crowdfunding and its appropriateness to meet their funding needs.

This issue is clearly of some importance, as these social entrepreneurship ventures may vary in their business models, ownership structures and financing (Zahra & Wright, 2016), and access to funding is one of the main problems they have to face (Melián et al., 2011; Valcárcel, 2012; Calic & Mosakowski, 2016). In a study conducted in France, Ducci et al. (2002) confirmed the increase of social enterprises in that country, but identified several obstacles they face, among which figure prominently the difficulty of obtaining financing. In this context, the European Commission launched in 2011 the Social Business Initiative (COM 2011) with the aim of promoting the development of social enterprises, and focused on a number of key areas for action, among which are a series of measures to improve access to finance.

Additionally, this work is particularly timely as different countries are developing initiatives along the same line. One example of which is the Spanish Law on the Promotion of Corporate Finance (Ley 5/2015, de 27 de abril, de fomento de la financiación empresarial). This legislation includes mechanisms to improve business financing, and regulates for the first time in this country equity crowdfunding as an alternative financing system.

Therefore, the broad objective of this article is to analyze the perception social entrepreneurs have of crowdfunding, and its level of usage in social enterprises. In particular, the article will analyze the main reasons that drive or impede the use of crowdfunding, the availability and accessibility of relevant information, the suitability of crowdfunding to finance social projects, and how best to improve promotion of crowdfunding in order to encourage greater use in the future. For these objectives, the Delphi method is employed, a methodology that is recommended in these type of cases, as due to the lack of previous studies on the subject, it is considered appropriate to use qualitative techniques of this nature (Dubois & Gadde, 2002; Seguí-Mas & Server, 2010).

The article begins with a brief review of the concept and importance of social entrepreneurship, and an assessment of the different sources of funding available to social entrepreneurs. The appropriateness of crowdfunding as an alternative to corporate finance is also looked at. Following this, the survey and research methodology are described, and the main results of the study are presented. The principal conclusions are then presented and a series of recommendations offered for further research.

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This publication has been prepared within INDIGISE project. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the project coordinator and may not always reflect the views of the European Commission or the National Agency.

The Case for Letting Business Solve Social Problems Michael Porter
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The Case for Letting Business Solve Social Problems
Michael Porter

Why societies turn to nonprofits, NGOs and governments to solve their biggest problems? World known economist, Michael Porter admits he’s biased, as a Harvard Business School professor, but he wants people to hear his case for letting business try to solve massive problems like climate change and access to water. Why? Because when business solves a problem, it makes a profit, which lets that solution grow.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iIh5YYDR2o[/embedyt]

Michael Porter is the founder of the modern strategy field and one of the world’s most influential thinkers on management and competitiveness. The author of 19 books and over 130 articles, he is the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor at Harvard Business School and the director of the school’s Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, which was founded in 2001 to further his work and research.

Sources:

https://www.ted.com/talks

https://www.isc.hbs.edu/

 

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This publication has been prepared within INDIGISE project. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the project coordinator and may not always reflect the views of the European Commission or the National Agency.

 

Social Innovation Academy E-learning Tool
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Social Innovation Academy E-learning Tool

Social Innovation Academy E-learning is a freely available tool to gain theoretical and practical insights on what social innovation is really about. Complemented with tons of examples on social innovation initiatives and activities of social enterprises, learning material supports readers in reflecting on their own social innovation ideas.

After a short introduction on social innovation, various learning modules are presented to be chosen from. Practical examples, interviews with experts, skills, trends overview, mentor advice and glossary are available for free. Need some guidance and inspiration? Start with INTERVIEWS or EXAMPLES. Looking to get over the social innovation jargon quickly? Jump over to the GLOSSARY. Want to improve your personal abilities? Go to SKILLS. Looking for concrete answers to concrete questions? Head straight to MENTORING ADVICE. Want to see what’s been the latest developments in the social innovation field? Start your learning with the TRENDS. You can go back anytime, skip the parts that are not relevant or not interesting for you at the moment, mix and match. Start HERE! 

“Get creative and learn exactly what you need.”  

SOCIAL INNOVATION INITIATIVE LOGBOOK

The aim of the present logbook is to provide guidance and support to those Social Innovation Academy learners and participants that want to begin their own initiatives. Learner can use what has been learned and apply it to the questions and assignments in this logbook. The logbook provides:

  • an insight to your learning results through a set of self-reflective questions that can help you generate further insight into your idea;
  • assignments that filled in and brought together into one single file will constitute the base document for your initiative or enterprise, outlining main features, story, business model and impact evaluation.

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More information can be found on Social Innovation Academy Webpage.
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This publication has been prepared within INDIGISE project. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the project coordinator and may not always reflect the views of the European Commission or the National Agency.

Travel Massive: Social Enterprises in Tourism Presented
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Travel Massive: Social Enterprises in Tourism Presented

The Social Entrepreneurship in Tourism Competition is the first worldwide competition focusing on social innovation and entrepreneurship in tourism. More than 20 finalists were selected by the Travel Massive community this year through public voting. Each participant has created a short video about own project for the judging panel. Check out these highly inspiring videos!




And other tourism business ideas published on Travel Massive.

The winners were announced on September 21st at the Online Award Ceremony. Watch the record of The Award Ceremony here:

 

Learn more on sustainable tourism industry development through social entrepreneurship on: https://travelmassive.com/

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This publication has been prepared within INDIGISE project. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the project coordinator and may not always reflect the views of the European Commission or the National Agency.

Gamified Tool to Learn What The Theory of Change Is All About
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Gamified Tool to Learn What The Theory of Change Is All About

The Theory of Change is a premier e-learning tool to optimise impact management and enhance social impact creation. As the cornerstone of impact management it is indispensable to any purpose-driven organisation targeting social or environmental value creation. It offers you the cornerstone of a learning approach toward change and impact. A way to build a mindset and organisational culture of critical reflection, co-creation with stakeholders and constant analysis of what works, why, for whom and under what circumstances.

The platform offers you the premier online course to learn about:

  • What the Theory of Change is
  • The practice of the Theory of Change
  • Theory of Change thinking
  • Assumptions and theory
  • The development process
  • Pathways and causal chains
  • Theory of Change elements
  • The narrative
  • ToC as an adaptive, learning approach
  • Quality assessment
  • Creation of your very own Theory of Change

The tool is developed and maintained by the team behind Changeroo: a consortium at the forefront of ToC-thinking. Changeroo is a social enterprise with the aim to lift the ToC-practice and thereby impact management to a higher level. This with the purpose to help you in your pursuit to help your beneficiaries to flourish. Also, it offers software platform to help you build high-quality Theories of Change. The software is adjusted to the organisations, programs and projects with a social mission. It makes a Theory of Change a living, breathing document for (adaptive) learning.

Learn more about Changeroo and The Theory of Change.

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This publication has been prepared within INDIGISE project. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the project coordinator and may not always reflect the views of the European Commission or the National Agency.

How business can be used to create value beyond profit?
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How business can be used to create value beyond profit?

Real Value is an independent award-winning economics documentary exploring how today’s social entrepreneurs and thought leaders are re-envisioning business as a powerful force for positive social change – creating long-term and sustainable value in their communities by putting people and planet over profit.

It is about connecting motivational stories from social entrepreneurs working in agriculture, apparel, insurance, and biofuel, with the captivating science behind people’s perception of value. The film serves as inspiration for any business owner, entrepreneur, or customer who is looking to better understand what happens when a business puts people, planet, and profit on equal footing.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez3CWXQrgVo[/embedyt]

 

This publication has been prepared within INDIGISE project.  Responsible for the content solely publisher/presenter; it does not reflect the views of the European Commission or any related financial body. Those institutions do not bear responsibility for the information set out in this website.

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A Dutch Pilot Study in Primary Teacher Education: Social Entrepreneurship Education in Focus
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A Dutch Pilot Study in Primary Teacher Education: Social Entrepreneurship Education in Focus

In a Dutch Institute for Primary Teacher Education, a pilot study was undertaken on social entrepreneurship education (SEE). It was a part of the international project “UKids – Social Entrepreneurship Programme for Kids!”. As game designing appears to offer good opportunities for the enhancement of empathy and business-related skills, student teachers were instructed by the researchers to design games that stimulate social entrepreneurship of children aged 8-12, and especially aim at enhancing empathy. Enhancement of the empathy has been one of the aims of the pilot.

In this study, SEE is conceptualized as education that addresses: (a) engagement – empathy, compassion and care – as incentive for social entrepreneurship, (b) entrepreneurship – the process of recognizing opportunities, generating ideas, taking initiatives and creating value and (c) the interaction between both.

The Empathy Challenge was chosen as a starting point for group-wise game design together with students. The games had to focus on encouraging pupils to develop empathy for children with different cultural backgrounds. The students oriented themselves on the assignments by studying information on UKids and reading literature about both SEE and empathy. Then each group of students developed game prototypes, supervised by a teacher educator. Finally, all students of each group piloted the game at their practice school in succession. During the whole process, students reflected on the enhancement of SE and empathy, and presented their games to other students, educators and primary teachers. The concepts of developed games and the process of development itself can be explored in the full article developed by Elizabeth Rigg and Stella van der Wal-Maris at Marnix Academie, Utrecht, the Netherlands.

In result, through constructing and testing the game, students improved their understanding of social entrepreneurship and enhanced their empathy. The games enabled the players to empathize with people in their own surroundings, work together in teams, reflect and listen to each other and eliminate prejudices. In terms of game development, young students focused on the issues of local children instead of focusing on the problems or fictive adults abroad. That allowed to empathize more with the activity and the people in focus. The students saw clear a relationship between dialogue and empathy. Reflection was one of the methods applied. When the players reflected on what they had learned from the games, most of them mentioned interaction skills that are useful for dialogue. The main lesson children learned about social entrepreneurship were that empathy is the basis of social entrepreneurship, as it constitutes the main stimulus to act. The “action” step included entrepreneurship-related steps: developing ideas, implementing ideas and thinking sustainably. Additionally, their design included acquiring such skills as organizing, working together, acting with foresight and justifying finances.

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Source: Rigg, E., van der Wal-Maris, S., 2020, Student Teachers’ Learning About Social Entrepreneurship Education _ A Dutch Pilot Study in Primary Teacher Education, Marnix Academie, Utrecht

UPSHIFT, UNICEF’s flagship social innovation programme
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UPSHIFT, UNICEF’s flagship social innovation programme

There are 1.8 billion young people in the world today, nearly 90 per cent of whom live in low- and middle-income countries — the largest cohort ever.

Yet globally more than 200 million adolescents are out of school and youth unemployment is 13% globally; 3 times higher than the rate for adults. There are many different reasons for this, ranging from escaping conflict to disability to education systems that don’t provide the skills young people need for employment today. But the common challenges are a lack of opportunity and systems that fail to provide skills for work and for life.

UPSHIFT is an opportunity to support youth and adolescents to become a force for positive social and economic change, contributing to a competitive labour force, sustained economic growth, improved governance, and vibrant civil societies. The UPSHIFT programme blends leading approaches to youth and adolescent development with social innovation and social entrepreneurship. UPSHIFT empowers young people to identify challenges in their communities and create entrepreneurial solutions to address them.

The UPSHIFT approach

UPSHIFT is designed to build transferable skills and create opportunity, with a focus on the most disadvantaged young people.

The core UPSHIFT content is modular, allowing UPSHIFT to be adapted to different contexts and delivered in different settings – ranging from youth innovation labs to schools and non-formal education centres. Through a combination of Outreach & Inspiration, Human Centred Design workshops, Mentorship & Coaching and, in some cases seed funding, participants gain valuable transferable skills, including problem-solving, critical thinking, creativity, collaboration and leadership. You can find the UPSHIFT facilitation guides here.

UNICEF Innovation

UPSHIFT is an adaptable and scalable approach, which supports the development of skills for life and livelihood and supports youth to positively engage with their local communities as change-makers.

The programme is recognised as a promising solution for youth employment within the World Bank’s Solutions for Youth Employment Impact Portfolio.

UPSHIFT is recommended as a potential solution that can create results at scale for young people by Generation Unlimited and has formed the basis for developing the Generation Unlimited Youth Challenge.

UNICEF
UPSHIFT Diagram
UNICEF Innovation

Results for adolescents and youth

UPSHIFT delivers skills that support future opportunities for life and livelihood for the most marginalized and vulnerable youth. Young people develop transferable skills through both the training elements and the opportunity to work collaboratively, in a supportive environment, to identify and solve social problems.

The ’recipe’ for UPSHIFT looks different in each country, depending on identified needs, but will focus on 4 different areas:-

  1. Building of transferable skills, including problem-solving, critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication and leadership skills
  2. Adolescent and youth empowerment, including confidence, resilience, and sense of agency
  3. Civic engagement, with young people engaging in their communities and earning respect.
  4. Entrepreneurship, as both a skillset and a mindset

UPSHIFT in action 

UPSHIFT started its journey in Kosovo in 2014 and is now in 22 different countries, but more importantly, it is impacting the lives of hundreds of thousands of young people.

UNICEF Innovation

By design, UPSHIFT specifically seeks to engage disadvantaged communities, including girls, young people with disabilities, young refugees and ethnic minority communities. UPSHIFT can be focused on specific issues (e.g. climate change adaptations, water and sanitation solutions) or can be entirely youth-led, with young people selecting the issues that most affect them and their communities.

To read more about the Programme go here: https://www.unicef.org/innovation/upshift

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This publication has been prepared within INDIGISE project. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the project coordinator and may not always reflect the views of the European Commission or the National Agency.