Member Article

Erasmus+ Funded Programme will help shape the Enterprise Support Landscape Across Europe

Enterprise Support Organisation ‘The Women’s Organisation’ has been successful in securing EU funding as part of a partnership programme to support an entrepreneurial approach to skills development, social inclusion and economic growth.

Entrepreneurship360 is a three-year Erasmus+ funded project led by the University of Iceland, the leading institution of research and higher education in Iceland; renowned for research in the global scientific community, and working with partners from Belgium, Finland, Italy and Spain with enterprise experts The Women’s Organisation contributing as UK partner.

Meeting for the first time in Iceland this month to shape the project, the partners have been pooling ideas and expertise to explore the practical implementation of the groundbreaking EntreComp (European Entrepreneurship Competence) Framework, building directly on The Women’s Organisation’s experience and Enterprise Evolution consultancy services.

Building on the success of Entrecomp the development of the Entrepreneurship360 platform will provide a one-stop-shop for the peer networks, guidance, tools, resources and MOOC based training to enable individuals and organisations to understand and use the EntreComp competence framework. The £240,000 project will run until summer 2022, building a community of practice to connect those applying EntreComp to their learning and work practices. It will be innovative in its cross sector nature exploring lifelong learning from formal education through to HR recruitment and start-up and will provide opportunity for representatives from the partner organisations to visit the other countries involved to see how they are already working to support entrepreneurs.

By defining 15 key competences, grouped in 3 areas: Ideas & opportunities; Resources; and Into action, EntreComp helps to create a shared understanding of the knowledge, skills and attributes that make up what it means to be entrepreneurial. The pioneering EntreComp framework is the first cross-continent approach to supporting entrepreneurial ambition now being implemented by organisations and institutions across Europe and will provide a baseline for steering the focus of Entrepreneurship360.

The Women’s Organisation’s Enterprise Evolution consultancy team are in prime position to support the development of Entrepreneurship360 having co-authored the framework’s user-guide, EntreComp Into Action and led research activities into how organisations supporting workforce development have used the framework.

The framework and user-guide are proving to be valuable to those working in education, training and development across Europe in shaping their activities and approaches to supporting work that create value for others, whether that be financial, cultural or social.

CEO of The Women’s Organisation, Maggie O’Carroll, said: “The creation of the Entrecomp framework has been one of the most ground-breaking pieces of work in terms of shaping the international offering around enterprise support we’ve seen for a long time. We are delighted that our partners at the University of Iceland were successful in securing funding for Entrepreneurship360 in order to further build on that work to ensure everyone from academics to those in informal learning environments have the same opportunity to understand the skills required to drive an enterprise forward. For more than two decades we’ve been campaigning to ensure those with entrepreneurial ambition have appropriate and essential programmes of support to give them the best chance to start, sustain and grow their businesses. Understanding the nuances of entrepreneurship and going a step further to look at how we can make the research, resources and learning around that more accessible across a European platform is an exciting opportunity we are thrilled to be a part of.”

The first step of implementing Entrepreneurship360 will be for the team to engage with others who are applying the Entrecomp framework or interesting in exploring how they could use the learning to inform their work. The Entrepreneurship360 partners have developed a survey for individuals and organisations to complete which will help to inform the and underpin the work, and will be an opportunity for others to join their community of practice.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by The Women's Organisation .