Bringing entrepreneurship education to PhD programmes An EU-funded project demonstrates innovative online training methodologies for stimulating PhD students’ acquisition of entrepreneurial skills. Society © ImageFlow/stock.adobe.com Entrepreneurship is often credited for being a major driver of economic growth and innovation. This is reinforced in the European Commission’s Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan, which calls for more entrepreneurs in EU economies. To achieve this, the Action Plan identifies education and training as one of the three pillars for facilitating entrepreneurship as well as the significant role universities play in encouraging entrepreneurship activities. Supporting the Action Plan is the EU-funded prodPhD project. It aimed to implement innovative social network-based methodologies for teaching and learning entrepreneurship in PhD programmes. “The multidisciplinary and learning methodologies will enable the introduction of entrepreneurship education into any PhD programme and will provide students with the knowledge, skills and motivation to engage in entrepreneurial activities,” notes Cecilia Soriano, project coordinator. Central to the success of the project is its collaboration with four running ERASMUS+ and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network projects, involving 20 higher education institutions from nine EU Member States, and more than 25 companies and research centres. This is in addition to four Horizon 2020 projects and 16 other European associations and organisations, which formed prodPhD’s expert advisory board. Creating an online training environment The project delivered and demonstrated through different pilot actions a social network-based training methodology. “This includes the necessary teaching guidelines and specific ‘learning by doing’ materials for entrepreneurship training as well as the required prodPhD online training environment which integrates customised collaborative work and social network solutions,” explains Soriano. The learning by doing approach encourages active engagement with available materials, the exchange of experiences, competences and approaches. “The most relevant result of prodPhD is the Online Training Environment that we have developed and launched in a pilot demonstration with PhD candidates,” confirms Soriano. The online training environment takes advantage of social network tools available on the Scipedia platform such as discussion groups, communication wall, internal messaging and discussion forums, providing the means for creating a virtual community. The Scipedia platform is a scientific and technical online publisher and professional social network. According to the needs and interests of the PhD students, gathered through surveys and interviews in the project, the training module Entrepreneurship for Digital Economy was implemented in the online training environment. It provides students with key concepts about the digital economy. The module is comprised of four chapters that include theoretical contents presented through videos, documents and references, quizzes and practical activities to strengthen knowledge. Pushing forward entrepreneurship education Project work will help provide PhD students with the knowledge, skills and motivation to engage in entrepreneurial activities. “Entrepreneurship is a competence demanded by today’s labour market of modern innovating-driven economies, and therefore, a competence that all young people should acquire and develop,” concludes Soriano. As for next steps, the prodPhD partnership aims to share project outcomes with other higher education institutions involved in PhD training and that are willing to promote entrepreneurship. “We will also maintain dialogue with accreditation bodies, policymakers and other key stakeholders to lay the ground for mainstreaming the prodPhD products and align it with key EU initiatives, amongst other activities,” confirms Soriano. prodPhD will also continue to host the ProdPhD Online Training Environment at Scipedia.com. Keywords prodPhD, entrepreneurship, online training environment, PhD programme, higher education, learning by doing, digital economy, social network solutions, competences
