The project TEMPUS SUCSID was presented at VI Forum “Universities and Business” in Brussels

The Sixth Universities and Business Forum brought together representatives of higher education and business in Brussels on the 5th and 6th of March 2015. Projects and initiatives, national, European and international organizations, associations, government institutions were represented at the Forum.

Partnerships between universities, businesses and other stakeholders in order to create jobs and ensure the growth was identified as a key issue for the sustainable development of higher education institutions, students, business and society as a whole one.

The first session was focused on established and promised practices in entrepreneurship teaching across Europe. There were identified innovative examples of leadership and management that led to a sustainable development of entrepreneurship education in HEIs and discussed specific ideas for their implementation at a European level.

The second session was focused on the different ways in which changes could be brought about in higher education institutions and in companies and how to stimulate cooperation and increase its impact. It was also focused on the innovative ways and approaches that companies and HEIs could work together to reach a common goal. For companies; to find the talents they would need for their future development, and for HEIs; to ensure that their graduates would have the right combination of knowledge, skills and competences to be well prepared for their professional life, and how HEIs would support their graduates in finding a job and starting their careers.

The third session was focused on a number of promising learning experiences in higher education, their impact and their contribution to a more innovative higher education provision. The session took a closer look at the development of innovators; more specifically, how this was encouraged through the educational process. The third workshop looked at how higher education could contribute to innovation, and identified how, through cooperation, innovation could be triggered in companies

The fourth session took a fresh look at emerging trends in University-Business Cooperation. It was focused on social innovation and social entrepreneurship; the move towards bringing social and ethical concerns into higher education alongside entrepreneurial skills development. It also addressed the changing relationship between “the university and the city”. Traditionally very closely linked – one often being at the origin of the other – the requirements and the ecosystem of cities, regions and HEIs could reshape this relationship.

At the meeting on business cooperation between universities and businesses in the Eastern Partnership, participated Marina Saprykina, CEO Center for CSR and Irina Zolotareva, professor of Kharkiv National University of Economics, coordinator of TEMPUS SUCSID «Creating Network Start-Up interuniversity centers support and advance students ‘innovation’. Irina Zolotareva presented to Forum participants the project results, achievements in cooperation between the companies, professional associations, representatives of local authorities and universities to create Start-up centers, implementing education and entrepreneurship round of the formation of entrepreneurial thinking among young people.