The innCREA project commenced on 1 November 2020. It is one of the numerous initiatives to emphasize the importance of soft skills and creativity for high school education. Despite the widespread recognition of the need for creativity, pioneering and innovation in the industry, practical guidance and systematic approaches to managing the creativity process are still not available in the educational and training framework for HEI.
Objectives of the project
The project’s overall aim is to transfer, adapt and implement an intergraded training programme package (material and methodologies) for teaching creativity and pioneering in pursuit of innovation to develop HE students soft skills and, at the same time, contribute to diminishing the gap between skills in demand in the labour market and the skills offered by HE courses. The specific objectives are to:
- strengthen the entrepreneurial skills of HE students and bringing skills demanded in the labour market closer to the skills offered by high education, by promoting a programme in creativity and pioneering management;
- provide European HEIs with a fully documented training material in creativity and pioneering management;
- provide HEIs with the necessary tools, which are demonstrated in practice (‘innCREA guideline’ and ‘creativity and pioneering Audit Tool’) in order to better develop abilities to identify their obstacles to creativity and pioneering and take necessary actions;
- increase the competitiveness and the innovation capacity by providing HEIs with the necessary creativity tools and practices for their everyday activities. Systemic creativity and pioneering support is a prerequisite for innovations development;
- increase the European business and high education community awareness and to cultivate a common consciousness about creativity and pioneering management in order to form the necessary supporting culture for creativity in Europe on the level of university – business;
- increase the adaptability of the business culture in the high education process as creativity requires the complementarities of both the technological and organizational modernisation as well as change management;
- engage in systematic and permanent dialogue HE institutions, employers, and all relevant stakeholders: HE students, community, local/regional authorities, and other organizations across the EU.
Outputs
The main outputs of the project are:
- innCREA Creativity and Pioneering Audit Tool, to describe the specifications that should be followed to better conduct a creativity audit;
- Guidelines, equipping business and education with knowledge and practical rules on how to contribute to the generation of these skills in students to create employees of the future;
- Creativity and Pioneering Training Programme Package, in order to improve teachers’ qualifications and knowledge about the relevance of creativity skills on the contemporary labour market and equipping them with practical ways to develop them with students.
Expected impact
The project plans to achieve the following impact:
- HEI students will raise their awareness about the need to develop their soft skills through creativity and innovation and will have opportunities to develop their soft skills during their learning paths
- HEI Teachers and other academic staff will boost their qualification through the innCREA tools and improve their professional performance and career plans;
- Companies will be provided a framework for establishing sustainable partnerships with HEIs and set fundaments for future joint initiatives creating synergies between the education and the business sectors.
InnCREA is a 2-year Erasmus + project implemented under KA203 – Strategic Partnerships for higher education“. The project partnership consists of 6 organisations from 5 countries – Poland, Italy, Finland, Bulgaria, and Greece.
