Search Results (3)

Nordic and West Balkan countries are major investment regions in Europe for greenfield and brownfield mineral exploration; however, the availability of qualified technical, scientific and managerial personnel involved in the whole mineral cycle is limited, especially in West Balkan countries. The partners of the TIMREX EIT RawMaterials-labeled MSc program have developed a joint curriculum focused on innovative raw materials prospecting and exploration methods, with strong innovation and entrepreneurial components. The program incorporates new exploration techniques and methodologies, portable and more highly sensitive equipment, robotized exploration equipment and the processing and interpreting of large, multidimensional datasets. The TIMREX curriculum was built around the ideal mineral exploration program, as suggested by raw materials stakeholders and orientated to field geology, exploration techniques and data processing, and also includes elements of sustainability, transversal societal and regulatory aspects. The program also focuses on EIT Overarching Learning Outcomes (OLO-s), which are embedded as core elements of the curriculum (innovation, entrepreneurship, sustainability, creativity, leadership and intercultural competencies). Significant contributions to the OLOs also arise from cross-organizational program elements, including the Exploration Entrepreneurship course, summer field camp, the Internship and the Social and Civic internship. Full article

Institutional collective actions (ICAs) provide a fascinating framework for comprehending collaborative urban initiatives. We defined ICAs as groups of people and organizations working together to promote a shared goal they could not pursue on their own. This study provides an empirical justification of why particular characteristics support the success of ICAs and why others fail. We restrict our analysis to culture-and-heritage-led urban regeneration initiatives and analyze the combinations of conditions under which these initiatives achieve their objectives. Adopting an integrated strategy, we studied prerequisites and critical elements that affect the success of collaborative actions, such as entrepreneurship, the enabling role of institutional capacity, multi-stakeholder involvement, and co-governance. Therefore, we compared sixteen culture-and-heritage-led urban regeneration initiatives in Europe as examples of ICAs in the urban context. We utilized fsQCA, fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis, as a method that enabled us to define the configurations (combinations of factors) that determine the performances of urban regeneration actions. The results demonstrate that a variety of elements are necessary for developing collaborative initiatives and that three different recipes can be developed. In addition, this study contributes to the body of knowledge on institutional collective actions in two ways: (1) by providing empirical evidence of why specific conditions need to be considered when developing collective actions and (2) by showing how specific conditions interact and explain the performance of ICAs. Full article

Service-Learning (SL) is a teaching innovation method that combines learning and social service objectives to improve educational quality and graduate employability. To date, there are hardly any studies on its global impact on university students. This paper describes and evaluates an SL experience for Sustainability Entrepreneurship in the context of Spanish Higher Education. Based on knowledge acquired in classrooms, multi-disciplinary teams of students from different subjects related to Business Administration offered support to potential entrepreneurs from rural municipalities in the complex task of writing a successful Business Plan for their projects for local sustainability. Within this academic framework, our study has two goals: (1) to assess the self-perception of university students about the improvement in their curricular development, professional skills and civic-social responsibility after participating in the SL experience; and (2) to estimate its possible effect on academic performance. The results show that the students acknowledged they had improved their social and sustainability commitment and their curricular development, and had acquired skills that society increasingly demands from future business professionals. Furthermore, service-students achieved significantly higher academic performance than a control group of non-participating students. These findings highlight the effectiveness of SL to provide a more holistic education for business university students. Full article