Project

Ecosys4you scales entrepreneurship education within and across the three entrepreneurial ecosystems of the regions Ruhr (Germany), Varna (Bulgaria) and Maribor (Slovenia). Establishing flows of innovation resources, common further development of competence, opening up of new markets, and integrating business expertise from the private sector into educational activities will create long-lasting interlinkages. This strengthens the entrepreneurial spirit to the benefit of all ecosystems, creates new entrepreneurs and supports network relations between diverse ecosystem actors. Ecosys4you develops a new and complementary understanding of entrepreneurship education by viewing ecosystems as collective educational actors essential to “raise” a start-up, and by empowering students to be an integral active part of ecosystems. Ecosys4you integrates new actors from the private sector, especially from the Ruhr as a strong innovator region, and jointly develops their role in entrepreneurship education. The focus is on developing a two-year cross-ecosystem program for young people with passion for entrepreneurship. The programme development will enable synergies in entrepreneurship education, networking, and market expansion between the three ecosystems and beyond. Young people interested in founding a company develop entrepreneurial expertise by learning from founders, start-ups, and real-world business development challenges. We establish and set up network-based exchange activities with the expertise of the three ecosystems, especially joint classes, mentoring, real-world challenges and internships at start-ups. The programme’s activities connect formal education in HEIs with the ecosystems in their entirety. The programme is open to students and young alumni from HEIs, professional schools, graduates who wish to find a company or other young people who wish to discover entrepreneurial spirit.

Ecosys4you develops and designs activities complementary to the regions’ existing entrepreneurial education, adds value through joint knowledge generation and networking events target at market expansion. Understanding ecosystems as collective educational actors is a cornerstone in our concept of innovative entrepreneurship education. It is inspired by the slogan “it takes a region to raise a start-up” that underlines the collective endeavour of all kinds of regional actors in supporting entrepreneurial spirit and start-ups. Consequently, the project’s coordinative actions focus on mobilising the educational resources of ecosystems in addition to higher education institutions. The approach will improve the quality of entrepreneurship education through practical knowledge and experience. A key principle is the integration of private actors into the programme design and implementation to enable co-creation between private sector actors, higher education institutions, teachers, and other ecosystem actors (e.g. public).

A second cornerstone of our concept of innovative entrepreneurship education is empowerment of students to being an integral and active part of entrepreneurial ecosystems. The main mission is to dissolve the divide between entrepreneurship education in HEIs and ecosystems. While students are highly appreciated as labour force within ecosystems both during their studies and after graduation, their role as entrepreneurial knowledge providers is underplayed. Ecosys4you will strengthen students’ role by developing actions allowing them to provide knowledge and learn in a co-generative manner.

Ecosys4you has three main objectives, underpinned by eight sub-objectives:

• To establish improved flows of innovation resources between the entrepreneurial ecosystems of the Ruhr, Varna and Maribor regions. Business experts of the private sector significantly contribute their expertise to increase innovation potential and to establish and sustain the flow of resources.
  • To develop and test 4 flows of innovation resources based on education, networking, market expansion, and people.
  • To involve at least 10 private sector actors from the Ruhr in the development of innovation resource flows.
  • To develop 2 sets of supporting infrastructure (organisational and financial) ensuring the long-term flow of innovation resources.
• To strengthen the innovation potential of the entrepreneurial ecosystems by stimulating and supporting people, especially the youth, to create new businesses and increase the flow of skilled employees to start-ups and young companies. A focus will be on improving digitisation competencies, for example, by raising awareness for cyber security as a fundamental part of business development in the digital era.
  • To develop 4 cross-ecosystem education activities driven by private sector expertise (joint classes, mentoring, internships, and co-ideation challenges).
  • To engage 200 young people (graduates, students, young founders), among them at least 80 women in the project activities and to facilitate up to 4 start-up foundations and innovation developments.
  • To specifically address needs of female entrepreneurs in the development of the education activities.
• To foster entrepreneurial thinking and practical knowledge by interlinking HEIs, entrepreneurs, and intermediaries inside and across the ecosystems. Students are empowered to be part of it as entrepreneurs.
  • To implement at least 27 cooperative events between HEIs and ecosystem actors of different institutional, sectoral, and national backgrounds as a basis for longlasting networks.
  • To integrate the expertise of students into the ecosystems through co-ideation, internships and co-creation.

Our team is formed by scientists (Institute for Work and Technology, Gelsenkirchen and DOBA business school, Maribor), a regional development agency (RAPIV, Varna) and a start-up (AWARE 7, Gelsenkirchen) from three European countries (Germany, Bulgaria and Slovenia).

Project results written by authors of the EcoSys4you-project team or with contributions of them are published in scientific and practical publications.

Through insightful interviews and desktop research, we've delved into the histories of startups and ventures and inquired about the support structures within the entrepreneurial ecosystem that proved beneficial. These compelling narratives are now accessible to anyone keen on gaining insights. Feel free to quote and leverage these stories for your exploration.

The Ecosys4you project is funded by the European Commission under the Horizon programme under the call elevating the scalability potential of European business.