REcovery the CRisis through Entrepreneurial ATtitudE - RECREATE

Project objectives

REcovery the CRisis through Entrepreneurial ATtitudE - RECREATE - aims to foster:

• the creation of links between higher education, research and business especially at regional level, and
• the acquisition of transversal and entrepreneurial attitude among young researchers and students, in order to contribute to recovery of the current economic crisis.

Furthermore, RECREATE aims to stimulate the acquisition of key competences, such as creativity and digital skills through innovative learning environments such as, open educational resources and flexible learning approaches.

Impact statement

Europe’s future economic growth and jobs will increasingly have to come from innovation in products, services and business models. This is why innovation and creativity has been placed at the heart of the Europe 2020 strategy for growth and jobs. According to the Communication from the Commission “Supporting growth and jobs – an agenda for the modernization of Europe's higher education systems”, universities need to create structured partnerships with the business community and increase the relevance of education and training programs by adding entrepreneurial skills to scientific expertise, so to improve the career prospects of researchers and students. 

Among the weaknesses that need to be addressed, the EC stresses the need to invest in qualified Human resources: insufficient investment in the higher education system has been identified as one major cause of modest innovation performance. Skill sets need to be adapted to foster creativity, entrepreneurship and other transversal skills (‘T-skills’) such as team-work, risk-taking and project management, all of which are essential for the generation, development, commercialization and diffusion of innovation. 

One important reason for Europe’s limited innovation capacity is the relatively low level of entrepreneurship fostered in the EU compared to the US and, increasingly, the BRIC countries. Professors, researchers and students have poorly developed entrepreneurial mind-sets in the EU where individuals frequently prefer to be employees rather than employers, a situation which hinders the development of innovative new start-ups and SMEs.

REcovery the CRisis through Entrepreneurial ATtitudE - RECREATE - aims to address these issues by providing a digital learning environment and curricula that stimulate independence, creativity and an entrepreneurial approach to harnessing knowledge.