WP1-Exploring the partnership models in Program Countries and WBC

 
Type: Preparation
 
Lead organizations: University of Novi Sad,  University of Tuzla
 
Start date: M2-01.12.2020.
 
End date: M7-01.07.2021.
 
Description:
 
In this preparatory phase the focus will be on analysis of existing university-enterprises partnerships in WBC and Program countries universities. Both partners from WBC and Program countries universities will look for identifying best practices within their national context, such as knowledge transfer partnership models, knowledge alliance models, triple helix, etc.
The consortium will identify which models could be suitable to become transferrable best practices for the establishment of similar cooperation agreements in other countries, and especially in WBC. All necessary measures and activities for its successful implementation at the WBC institutions will be undertaken, including communication with enterprises, promotional, disseminating and raising awareness activities, networking key actors.
 

The reports will be complemented with feedbacks from the economic sector. This will be done through a set of interviews with people from the industry in each country as well as a wrapping up roundtable (M5). Meetings with university representatives will be organised at each institution in WBC, with aim to discuss all those issues with industry representatives and to identify all fields of cooperation. Prepared reports will be the basis for drafting framework and regulatory documents for cooperation created and adopted at each WBC Universities. (M8)
For implementation of all described activities, WP1 team will be fully responsible.
WP1 team will be consisted by one representative from each institution involved and it will be led by the University of Novi Sad.

 

In order to set the ground for this activity, a workshop will be organised within the work package in M5 at University of Novi Sad, Serbia.

Two persons from each institution involved in the analysis will participate to the workshop. Participants will be university staff involved in the university-enterprise cooperation activities (vice-rectors, vice-deans, deans, academic staff). During the workshop, all partners will present and discuss the evidences collected in their countries. Furthermore, during the workshop, relevant topics for training WBC staff in university-enterprise cooperation will be clearly identified and agreed (activity 2.2.).
After the workshop, a Benchmarking report will be prepared with inputs from all partners under the coordination of the WP leader. The report will be available by M7. Such report represents the basis for the transfer of best practices adopted within each participating institution.
The reports will be complemented with feedbacks from the economic sector. This will be done through a set of interviews with people from the industry in each country as well as a wrapping up roundtable (M5). Meetings with university representatives will be organised at each institution in WBC, with aim to discuss all those issues with industry representatives and to identify all fields of cooperation. Prepared reports will be the basis for drafting framework and regulatory documents for cooperation created and adopted at each WBC Universities. (M8)
For implementation of all described activities, WP1 team will be fully responsible.
WP1 team will be consisted by one representative from each institution involved and it will be led by the University of Novi Sad. WP themes will be created for all work packages (see Management WP) 

WP2-Developing the university – enterprise partnership

 
Type: Development 
 
Lead organization: University East Sarajevo,  Skhodra University
 
Start date: M6 – 01.05.2021
 
End date: M36
 
Description:
Based on the knowledge gained in the first work package, some new forms of cooperation will be initiated. Through this work package university-enterprise network/cooperation should be established with aim to highlight practices and activities which would enable universities to better present and market their capacities to answer the very specific needs of enterprises, to take into account enterprises’ reluctance to invest time and effort in short-lived initiatives, and to develop long-lasting and practical relationships between academia and enterprise.
The University –enterprise network will be established at each partner country involved in the project. This network will be used as a base for creation of common projects, student internship programme, organising mobility’s between academia and industry, etc. Through this network potential benefits for both sides, universities and business sector will be clearly identified as well as direction and cooperation activities. Cooperation between multiple firms and multiple HEs will be developed through these networks. The networks will be connected through the common innovative cooperation platform that will be developed within this work package. In the very beginning the platform will be consisted by the all project partners as well as companies that showed interest in this project. The platform will facilitates the interaction between EU and WBC partners, as well as other future potential partners in University-business sector cooperation. The common projects that will be created within this project will be announced at the platform. Students from BSC, Master and PhD programme will be included in those projects and they will be used as the part and inputs for final dissertations. The International BURCH University will be responsible for the creation and administration of the platform. One of the most important benefit of the established network will be publishing information about open job position in business sector on cooperation platform, what will be visible to all students.
At each WBC university will be established Stakeholder forum that will be consisted by the members of companies which are included in the network, representatives of the academic staff and alumni representatives. The one of the main task of this forum is to participate in creation of learning outcomes and to evaluate learning outcomes based on the market needs, Also, the forum will give inputs and directions for possible cooperation activities between universities and business sector. On this way cooperation between academia and enterprises will be improved in both form and content.
One workshop will be organised with aim to create and adopt methodology for functioning cooperation platform and to define the rule and tasks of Stakeholder forum. Two representatives from each partner involved in the project will participate in the workshop. The workshop will be organised in M10 at the International BURCH University, and it will also be used for discussions of topics from WP2 and WP3. Additionally, one local workshop will be organised at the University of East Sarajevo with aim to further discuss creation of networks and functioning of the platform. Furthermore, internal workshops, on which university-enterprise network will be established, will be organised at each WBC HEIs. Representatives of the Program countries will participate in these workshop to share knowledge and experience from EU institutions.
Activities related to the update information on cooperation platform will last till the end of the project and beyond. 
 

 

WP3-Developing job-oriented studies at WBC universities

 
Type: Development 
 
Lead organization: University from Lublin,  University of Montenegro
 
Start date: M12 – 01. 10 .2021.
 
End date: M36
 
 
Description: 
The aim of this work package is to increase the graduates’ employment rate and professional profile of the students preparing them to be fully operational for a job. With support of the Stakeholder forum, at each WBC partner, existing learning outcomes/competence for 2-3 study programmes will be updated based on the inputs from the market needs, inputs that will be given by stakeholder forum. Each WBC university will choose two study programmes at BSc/Master levels to update learning outcomes/competence (Engineering discipline, business, economy):
International Burch Uni. – electrical engineering, IT and business
University of Mostar – Economy (Business, Management), IT, Mechanical Engineering
University of East Sarajevo – Mechanical Engineering, Electrical engineering, Economy
EPOKA – Economy, IT, Electrical Engineering
Skhodra University – Economy, business, natural sciences
Vlore University – Economy (Business, Management), IT, Technology Engineering University of Montenegro – IT, Mechanical engineering, Economy
Selected programmes have high influence on the economy of the participated countries.
Based on the new competences that will be created for programmes above mentioned, new study modules will be created and incorporate in the existing 4 courses at each selected programme. It is expected that at least 8 courses will be updated at each WBC institutions by introducing modules with real problems from practices (case studies). On this way students will be introduced with different problem solving techniques in specified fields. General content of the selected courses will be updated with new modules that takes up to four weeks (12 hours).
Within these modules the following will be introduced and presented: 
  • – Presentations and lectures with examples from practice, will be given by experts of the business sector
  • – Video or audio examples from practice
  • -Case studies that enable students to engage vicariously with practice
  • -High fidelity simulations that situate students in a representation of a real practice situations

All these elements present practice oriented teaching (with use of IT technologies) and will be introduced in selected courses on study programmes. On this way we will create professionally-focused learning environments. Selected courses will be from the group of specialised courses (not basic courses). Also, site visits to firms, placements/internships and working with students on live projects within the companies (both as individuals and in groups) will be organised (partly described in activity 2.6.).

In this purpose internship programme at each WBC university will be organised and implemented. During the workshop that will be organised in M10 (at the International BURCH University) models of internship programmes that exist at Program country universities will be presented.

By using effective project – oriented approach we will focus on developing the practical and innovating ability of senior students in specific discipline. On this way students can be fully involved in ‘real world’ projects within business sector. Within this work package, workshop on organisation of Internship programme and practice oriented teaching will be organised at the IBU (M16). All Program country institutions will provide expertise for creation of Internship programme at WBC institutions.
Within this WP, entrepreneurship course at all WBC universities will be updated according to the new development and trends in entrepreneurship. Content of entrepreneurship courses will also be disused at the workshop that will be organised at the IBU. Furthermore, entrepreneurship courses will be offered to students at technical faculties/study programmes specified above at all involved WBC HEIs.
Furthermore, training of teaching staff on project oriented teaching will be organised in WBC institutions and trainees will be experts from Program country partner universities (locally organised trainings). The aim of this training is to educate teaching staff from WBC university in new teaching method that can be implemented in teaching process in cooperation with experts from the practice. Trainings will be organised in East Sarajevo and Tirana. Number of staff that will be involved in the training is 3 teachers from each WBC university (totally 40). On this way more participants from WBC countries will be involved in the training and we will decrease the travel costs for participants. 

 

 

WP4-Creation of Start-up Services at WBC universities

 
Type: Development 
 
Lead organization: Kempten University of Applied Science, EPOKA University
 
Start date: M13- 01. 01. 2022.
 
End date: M36
 
Description:
Starting from creation of university-enterprise network, and inputs gained from Program country experts, Start-up services will be created at WBC HEIs. Creation of the Start-up Services at 8 WBC HEIs will enable students and future graduate to start their own business. Recommendations and related documents for functioning Start-up services will be developed in the beginning of the second project year. These documents will be adopted by the University/Faculty authorities. Responsibilities and tasks will be defined and explained in details. Services that will be offered will be explained in details. Start-up services will be in function at the end of the second project year. An early step in setting up the Start-up services—and an essential ongoing activity—is identifying and fostering relationships with stakeholders. This group will include academics, representatives of the business, industry and user community, and regional and governmental offices.
Overall there are several stages that the student projects/business ideas go through and that use the Start-up Services in different seasons. Stages that the project/business ideas pass through are: idea, validated idea, minimum viable product (MVP), working prototype, private beta, public beta, launching, and launched. Based on these stages, the numerous services will be provided through Start-up services.
First academic services will be created and provided for students. Those services include education in entrepreneurship, creation of business, financial and marketing plan. Special trainings on procedures to register company and intellectual property will also be provided through Start-up services.
Furthermore, the following core services that will be developed and provided through university Start-up services:
Mentoring Service – Professors and industry partners are matched to start-up teams during their early development. They meet bi-weekly or monthly to discuss progress on goals, answer questions, provide motivation and support to founders. Technology validation service – Using lean principles and methods each student proposal will be challenged to justify and validate their product market fit and customer demand before moving forward to the fundraising stage and ultimately toward launch phase; Patent service – Expert in regional patent procedures can be contracted to give advice for start-up companies who wish to patent their ideas. Capital introduction and investor meetings – Industry partners organize conferences and visit the university entrepreneurship program to share best practices for fundraising. This will be implemented with network of industry partners that will be created in the Work package 2.
Employment services – Leveraging the universities alumni and employee networks as well as it’s MOUs with partner companies and institutions, there are strong synergies for positive outcomes given the correct incentive design for increased student placement, education advancement and replacement. Thus, resulting in satisfied industry and government partners.
Delivering academic trainings and market development trainings will be organised in the third project year in cooperation with partners from industry sector. Partnership is developed within activities described in WP2 and WP3.Through those trainings, students will gain knowledge necessary for creation of their own business. Those trainings are delivered as a part of functioning of Start-up services. All information related to the Start-up services will be published at the university’s website. Booklet about the Start-up services will be published at each partner university. This activity will be mainly realised by the university staff. One classroom will be equipped for training at each WBC HEIs. Also, business simulation software for academic trainings will be purchased. Progress reports on activity realization will be presented and discussed during the progress workshops explained in WP5. Progress workshop are organised during the coordination meetings to decrease travel cost. One workshop will be organised within this work package Kempton University of Applied Science, Germany. During that workshop all relevant Start-up services will be defined, presented and explained. Two representatives from each institution will participate in the workshop. Also, there will be organised short visits of WBC staff (Start-up services officers) to Program countries to learn about the Start-up duties, rules and functioning.
The Start-up competition will be organized as a final activity related to training and formation of start-up services to gather most successful start-ups selected at each WBC HEI. The ideas and business plans of start-ups will be organised at already planned and provided trainings. Selection of two best start-up ideas from each WBC HEI will also be organized at the trainings. Each WBC HEI will send five students (2-3 student per each team) as representatives at the Start up competition that will be organized at IBU (Sarajevo) in M28.
 

WP5-Quality control and monitoring activities

 
Type: Quality Plan 
 
Lead organization: OBREAL
 
Start date: M1
 
End date: M36
 
Description:
This work package is set to ensure that the all activities and results will be achieved in line with the project application. Team for Quality control will create a project quality plan, compromising internal and external QA, clear milestones and indicators for a swift follow-up.
The Quality plan will provide tools and plans for the monitoring and periodic review of the project and its outputs, as well. It will ensure that:
 
  1. Model on university-enterprise cooperation is established and adopted
  2. Stakeholder forum is established and in function 
  3. Internship programme is created and implemented
  4. Specific needs of different modes and target groups are considered
  5. Start-up services are created and delivered,
  6. University-enterprise network is created and functioning, etc.

This plan will be adopted by Project Management Board (PMB), and it will be implemented during the project lifetime. Team will be consisted by one representative from each institution involved in the project. Furthermore, team for the quality control (QC) will be appointed at each WBC University and it will be consisted from one representative from academic staff, students and one representative from business sector. These teams will be responsible for preparing the self-evaluation report that will be sent to the Team for the quality control and monitoring (QCMT), the PMB, and will be used as base for the monitoring visits that will be organised at each WBC university. Monitoring visits will be organised in the second and third project year. The team for quality control will prepare reports on those visits and it will be discussed during the coordination meetings. All these reports will be sent to the Project Management Board. Special surveys/questionnaires will be developed for the business sector/industry to get inputs from them about the project activities, results and possible improvements. Some questionnaires’ and surveys will be also implemented through the cooperation platform that will be developed in the second project year. All activities such as the trainings, workshops, study visits, the final conference, implementation of new modules in curricula, functioning of Start-up services will be evaluated by means of feedback forms, interviews, minutes of the meetings, reports that will be carried out for the specific purpose of internal evaluation and final reporting. A check sheet will be created and used in the purpose of the quality control activities as well. Check sheet will be published on the project web site and it will be periodically fill in by all project partners. Exact dates will be defined by the monitoring plan. These evaluations will help in revising future activities. Additionally, the external monitoring will be organised in the end of second project year. This monitoring will be realised by two experts who are not involved in the project. Their report will be presented and discussed at the coordination meeting and it will be used in preparing the reports which will be sent to the Agency. EU experts who will be responsible for quality control activities will participate in coordination meetings to present their reports and suggestions for further improvement of project realisation. QCMT will visit all WBC institutions in the second and third project year.

WP6-Dissemination and exploitation of the project activities

 
Type: Dissemination 
 
Lead organization: University of Dzemal Bijedic Mostar and University “Ismail Qemali” Vlore
 
Start date: M2
 
End date: M36
 
Description:
The dissemination of the Project will start just after the kick-off meeting where setting of the dissemination plan will be made and continue during the lifetime of the Project and even after its end. Dissemination plan will be drafted by NERDA (P13) and it will be adopted by PMB by M3. The project web-site will be formed during the 2nd month of the project containing all relevant information about actual status of the Project, on-going activities and planned one, results, information about the partners and one restricted part used in the management purpose. The web site information will be published in English and local languages. The site will also have the link toward the innovative cooperation platform that will be created during the Project. Promo material (leaflets, flyers) and publicity for the project activities (services for business sector, information about Start-up services, university-enterprise network, internship programmes for students) will be created and distributed during dissemination occasions such as open days, round tables with enterprises, workshops, final conference. All project activities will be presented at the internal level (students, academic staff, university authorities) as well as to professionals in enterprises and to wider community through various media outlets (external level) and workshops. On this way, the other academic staff, who are not directly involved in the project, will have opportunity to gain new knowledge in university-enterprise cooperation and benefits. These activities will be organised from the very beginning of the project application and will take till the end and beyond the project. In the purpose of dissemination of the project activities, social web site will also be used (Facebook, Instagram).A specific dissemination action will be undertaken at the Final Conference (month 35). At this event, a brochures describing the project and its aims and outcomes will be published in English and local languages, and distributed to relevant representatives of business sector, industry, government and other universities from region who are not directly involved in the project. Dissemination conference will be organised at the University Dzemal Bijedic Mostar. Two representatives from each institutions will participate in the conference. All these activities will be organised in purpose of raising awareness of importance of university-enterprise cooperation. To ensure effective sustainability of the project results, sustainability plan will be created by M13. This plan will cover organisational and financial aspects of the sustainability. The plan will include functioning of the network after the project ending, maintain the project web site and cooperation platform, organisation of the professional trainings, cooperation between HEIs and industry/business sector, functioning of new established services, etc. Financing of the Start-up services will be provided through projects and/or by the university resources.
 

WP7-Project management

 

Type: Management

 

Lead organization:  International BURCH University

 

Start date: M1

 

End date: M36

 
Description:
 

The International Burch University will be project coordinator. A management structure will be set up: project coordinator, Project Management Board (one person from each institution involved), Team for quality control and monitoring (QCMT), WP leaders. A detailed consortium agreement will be drafted, setting all the regulations in terms of communication, administrative and financial management, quality plan, dissemination, reporting and conflict resolution. Manual for financial and administrative management with description of contractual obligations and its practical implementation will be developed by the project coordinator and send to each project partner. Project coordinator and PMB are responsible for overall coordination of the project activities. WP leaders will be responsible for organisation and implementation of activities within their WPs. WP leaders and QCMT will continuously communicate with project coordinator and PMB and inform them about realisation of the project activities. Project & Task Tracking tool will be used in purpose to manage project activities / deadlines and monitor realisation of the activities within specific work packages. Annual and Financial reports about project activities and results in the project will be written every year. After the partners have submitted their annual financial reports, the project coordinator together with Project Management Board reviews all documents and attaches them to an overall financial report to be sent to EACEA. Compliance with the effective regulation will be double-checked by an external financial auditor to ensure quality of the consortium’s financial reporting. While the ex-post financial audit (after the project’s end) is obligatory, already an audit on the intermediate report shall detect potential short-comings that still might be improved during the project’s lifetime.
PMB will monitor project activities realisation, organize coordination meetings, evaluate project results through work and reports of QCMT.
Furthermore, during the first meeting, teams (working groups) for each WP will be created and they will be entitled to carry-on the activities described in all work packages. In detail: work-group for the development of university-enterprise relationships (WP2), work-group for developing market-oriented study courses (WP3), work-group for the creation of Business start-up services (WP4). Work-groups for dissemination and quality control will be established as well. Leaders of those work-groups will be in contact with PMB all the time and they will be responsible for preparing periodical report on realisation of the project activities.
4 overall coordination meetings will be organised during the project:

  1. in M1 at the International Burch University
  2. in M12 at the EPOKA
  3. in M24 at the University of Montenegro
  4. in M34 at the University Dzemal Bijedic Mostar (during the Final dissemination conference)

Additionally, one day training for administrative staff will be organised in the very beginning of the project application. Administrative staff will include one financial and one legal officers that will be appointed at all WBC institutions involved in the project. They will be trained on all EU procedures that have to be followed during the project implementation. This is very important taking in consideration the number of the institutions involved in the project.