Learning co-creating international social enterprises
The world is in need of professionals that understand the global challenges we are facing; they must be able to come up with sustainable solutions for those challenges. Profound learning about this requires a meaningful context, which is hardly available in traditional settings within an university.
Furthermore, there is a significant desire among students to learn about the social side of doing business, and tapping into this can have a huge impact on their intrinsic motivation. The innovative idea and aim of this project was to further develop an innovative educational module to co-create real, international social enterprises. Building an entrepreneurial spirit – in an international, social context and in an authentic learning environment – will be invaluable for the students development. And on top of that, the to-be-created social enterprises will also help making the world a better place. The geographical focus was Sub-Saharan Africa, because it’s different in many ways from Western Europe, it’s becoming a very important part of the world, and also from a business perspective it is very promising.
Jointly work with peer students from partner universities
Through this project, all three study programs of Fontys International Business School in Venlo have the opportunity for students to join the Social Enterprise track within a second-year module called Start-up Factory. Students get connected to peers from one of our four partner universities and jointly work on projects in the area of social entrepreneurship. This can either be creating business cases for a new social enterprise, or working together with already established social enterprises.
Possibilities for further development
The main result of this project is that an innovative educational module to co-create real, international social enterprises has been achieved. The scale to which the project develops is bigger than expected. Up until now, 220 students, three international partner universities (of which two new partners) and a few non-educational partners have been included. Students are working on real-life ideas and cases and there is a clear willingness among our partners to continue and perhaps even scale-up. Positive side-effects appeared, like building stronger partnerships, generating related but different innovative ideas, and opportunities for creating or joining related projects (e.g. through Erasmus+).
Relevante publicaties
- Binkley M. et al. (2012) Defining Twenty-First Century Skills. In: Griffin P., McGaw B., Care E. (eds) Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2324-5_2
- Deloitte Digital (n.d.) 2018 Global Human Capital Trends. Retrieved September 19, 2018, from https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/uk/Documents/human-capital/deloitte-uk-human-capital-trends-2018.pdf
- European Commission (n.d.) Social enterprises - Growth - European Commission. Retrieved August 24, 2018, from https://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/socialeconomy/enterprises_en
- Leke A. et al. (2018) Africa’s overlooked business revolution. Retrieved November 18, 2018, from https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/middle-east-and-africa/africas-overlooked-business-revolution
- Ministery of Education, Culture and Science (2015) The value of knowledge - Strategic Agenda for Higher Education and Research 2015-2025, from https://planipolis.iiep.unesco.org/sites/default/files/ressources/netherlands_the-value-of-knowledge.pdf
Presentaties over dit project
Bekijk hieronder de kennisclip van Marco van Lier over dit project uit het NRO Webinar: Onderwijs in Verbinding met de Samenleving van 4 oktober 2023.
Comenius Teaching Fellowship 2019
