Entrepreneurial skills for young social innovators in an open digital world. A European Initiative

Project Information

DOIT

Grant agreement ID: 770063

DOI

10.3030/770063

Project closed

EC signature date 27 September 2017

Start date 1 October 2017

End date 30 September 2020

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Europe In A Changing World - Inclusive, Innovative And Reflective Societies

Total cost

€ 2 524 008,91

EU contribution

€ 2 479 422,50

Coordinated by

SALZBURG RESEARCH FORSCHUNGSGESELLSCHAFT M.B.H.
Austria

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - DOIT (Entrepreneurial skills for young social innovators in an open digital world. A European Initiative)

Reporting period: 2018-10-01 to 2020-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Europe needs more young people with an entrepreneurial mindset and skills able to turn creative ideas into innovations that make our society more liveable and sustainable. Nourishing entrepreneurial young people has been on the agenda of educational policymakers and institutions in the European Union for many years. However, the addition of “Entrepreneurship” to traditional curricula and forms of teaching and learning has not generated convincing results (cf. the Eurydice report on “Entrepreneurship Education in Europe”, 2016). A more engaging and practice-based approach is needed to equip young learners with the mindset and skills needed by innovative citizens;

The project “DOIT – Entrepreneurial skills for young social innovators in an open digital world”, a H2020 Innovation Action, has trialled, evaluated and disseminated a novel approach for early entrepreneurship education in Europe. The DOIT learning programme has been developed for primary and secondary school pupils (6-16 years old). It fosters entrepreneurial and innovation skills that are applied in social innovation projects carried out in makerspaces. DOIT pursued and needed to achieve the following objectives:
1. Creating an empowering environment for young, digital social entrepreneurs and innovation education from an early age;
2. Nurturing innovation attitudes and skills in children and young people through digital fabrication and maker movement knowhow;
3: Bridging the gaps between makerspaces, schools, teacher training, entrepreneurship education and innovative entrepreneur networks;
4: Contribution to the creation of digital social innovation culture, higher youth employment, new markets and new jobs in the long-term;
The programme and an online-facilitator training course were scientifically validated by more than 1000 children and 1596 teachers in ten European regions (Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain and Serbia) in two phases (10/2018 to 2/2019 and 4/2019 to 11/ 2019; course in 5/2020). The programme received very good evaluation results, for example it achieved increased creativity, self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intentions by the involved children.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

"Project Progress
We had the first project review in M14 (December 2018) and were able to present the new practice-based DOIT learning programme and the first prototype of the DOIT-toolbox. Based on the reviewer comments some adaptations were made and additional support materials for working with students with special needs in a makerspace were integrated. Between M15 and M36 a series of practical workshops with children (DOIT Actions) were carried out within the two pilot phases, the facilitator trainings (face-to-face and online-course) took place, all roll-out and networking activities and the final development of the DOIT toolbox. Within the three years the project achieved all planned milestones, submitted all planned deliverables and achieved the results:
- DOIT Programme and Handbook,
- DOIT Toolbox and Platform,
- DOIT Roll-out and online course ""Making Young Social Innovators"" and
- DOIT Policy recommendations and networking activities.
Within M13 to M36, the consortium worked on developing and testing specific support materials for the DOIT learning programme and action. By M36 an overview of the DOIT Toolbox showed a rich collection of 113 learning materials.
Within project duration, we achieved an unexpected high access rate of 44.689 users having viewed at least one of the material of the toolbox, and, a rate of 6.575 downloads for individual materials as pdf (figures status 30-09-2020).
As is shown by the individual exploitation plans of the partners, the DOIT Toolbox will be used beyond project end either in the partners organisation or in regional cooperation partners content repository.
3 EC Policy Briefs were collaboratively worked out with national stakeholders and 57 institutions signed the Memorandum of Support in Making Young Social Innovators with DOIT programme,"

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

DOIT has progressed the state-of-the-art in the following fields related to entrepreneurial learning programmes.
(1) Learning approach: provides a novel large scale trialled, scientifically validated and disseminated programme (mixed method approach with data from 1006 children and 960 teachers from 10 European regions) for early entrepreneurship education in Europe. The DOIT learning programme was developed for primary and secondary school pupils (6-16 years old) and received significant results as to the skills of
(2) Learning materials: the project consortium jointly developed the DOIT handbook, 20 replicable DOIT Workshopmanuals, a webbased toolbox and 113 support materials for different learning settings of entrepreneurship education in makerspaces. It additionally offers materials for special target groups e.g. how to facilitate innovation learning with makerspace tools for girls, children with disabilities and less privileged children. It provides 96 success stories (prototypes developed by children in the DOIT pilots), which can be further used as age-appropriate stimulation material.
(3) Facilitation of learning programme: we developed and tested new four-week online-course in which facilitators can learn how to train young learners to develop a creative and innovative way of thinking to solve social problems. It is freely accessible as Open Educational Resources and can serve in initial or professional teacher training programmes. It is available beyond project end and incorporated in national teacher training programmes.
(4) Cocreation and production of materials as open education resources: Co-creation with the target groups has taken place in a number of ways in preparation and during Phase 1 of the pilots, as mentioned in D4.2. Multiple avenues for co-creation in the project have been identified, and were explored and implemented in Phase 2, for example: participants in the Finnish Pilot Phase 1 co-created the design of the DOIT Action in Phase 2 and played a role in the facilitation team as well. The toolbox and all published material is licensed under CC BY 4.0 for all textual content, CC BY ND 4.0 for images and audio-visual material. This strategy allows project partners and other interested stakeholders to regionally adapt the material and re-use it in their national digital content strategy.
(5) Dissemination of need for new entrepreneurial learning: a Memorandum in Support of Making Young Social Innovators with the DOIT programme was signed by more than 57 European national educational institutions and stakeholders. It suggests empowering young people through collaborative work on creative solutions for societal issues (e.g. United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals). This happens already in a growing number of makerspaces around Europe where like-minded people get together and work on innovative projects, using various digital and other productive tools. Some makerspaces have also been set up in pioneering schools, as well as collaboration with existing makerspaces of FabLabs, universities, libraries, youth centres and other organisations. The makerspaces should enable young learners, together with teachers and other facilitators, to develop the creative and social skills needed by innovative citizens.

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