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INTPART-International Partnerships for Excellent Education and Research

Developing entrepreneurial mind-sets across cultures: A Norway - South-Africa collaboration

Alternative title: Developing entrepreneurial mind-sets across cultures: A Norway - South-Africa collaboration

Awarded: NOK 4.4 mill.

Our primary goal was to further strengthen our entrepreneurship education offering by using a practice-based approach and by adding a cross-cultural perspective. Our secondary aim was to do this by increasing collaboration with local industry. The partners wanted to strengthen and expand their links with industry, this to promote local knowledge and to give students opportunities for practice-based learning. Our vision was to further develop ourselves as entrepreneurial universities and to create entrepreneurial students and academic staff. We have come closer to our goals. To achieve this, we have held several workshops. As planned, we started with a workshop where academic and administrative staff at the 5 universities met to clarify formal matters and to give input on how various internal administrative and academic routines should be adapted. Many of these clarifications are now in place. We were therefore able, as indicated in the application, to test various teaching measures which we believe will give the students a valuable international entrepreneurial learning experience. As promised, we have organized a summer school where students from our 5 partner universities got involved in measures that can mitigate the large youth unemployment in South Africa, we have ensured that students from both South Africa and Norway have obtained valuable internship positions abroad, we have organized so that students could take shorter courses abroad, we have organized so that students could collect data for their master's thesis abroad and academic staff have had shorter and longer study stays abroad. These measures have been continued after the end of the project. In order to get a better link with local business, we have held workshops where we have involved key business actors in South Africa and Norway and let them discuss common interests. We have also received input on the design, content and list of current local companies that are relevant for international internships. This work and this connection has strengthened local companies' access to new and interdisciplinary expertise. In order to evaluate our results and to communicate our newly gained insights, we have held several workshops. These lead towards a special issue in a journal. We invited academic staff at our 5 partner universities to discuss educational and practical measures that will give our students a valuable international entrepreneurial learning experience. We received 14 contributions, of which 9 are now in the second review round. The special edition will be published in autumn 2023. This international research collaboration will point to successful elements and points for improvement in the internationalization of entrepreneurship education in South Africa and Norway. Such input and assessments are useful for the university sector. We have therefore further strengthened our entrepreneurship education offering by using a practice-based approach and by adding a cross-cultural perspective. We have also increased cooperation with local industry.

Vårt primære mål var å ytterligere styrke vår entreprenørskapsutdanningstilbud ved å bruke en praksisbasert tilnærming og ved å legge til et tverrkulturell perspektiv. Vårt sekundære mål var å gjøre dette ved å øke samarbeidet med lokal industri. Partnerne ville styrke og utvide sine bånd til industrien, dette for å fremme lokal kunnskap og å gi studentene muligheter for praksisbasert læring. Vår visjon var å videreutvikle oss som entreprenørielle universiteter og å skape entreprenørielle studenter og fagansatte. Vi har kommet nærmere våre mål. For å få til dette har vi avholdt flere workshops. Som planlagt startet vi med en workshop hvor faglige og administrativt ansatte ved de 5 universitetene møttes for å avklare formelle forhold og for å gi innspill til hvordan ulike interne administrative og akademiske rutiner burde tilpasses. Mange av disse avklaringene er nå på plass. Vi kunne derfor som indikert i søknaden teste ut ulike undervisningstiltak som vi mener vil gi studentene en verdifull internasjonal entreprenøriell læringsopplevelse. Vi har som lovet organisert en sommerskole hvor studenter fra våre 5 samarbeidsuniversiteter engasjerte seg i tiltak som kan avbøte den store ungdomsarbeidsledigheten i Sør Afrika, vi har sørget for at studenter fra både Sør Afrika og Norge har fått verdifulle internship-posisjoner i utlandet, vi har organisert for at studenter kunne ta kortere kurs i utlandet, vi har organisert slik at studenter kunne samle data til sin masteroppgave i utlandet og fagansatt har hatt kortere og lengre studieopphold i utlandet. Disse tiltakene er videreført etter prosjektets slutt. For å få en bedre kobling til lokalt næringsliv har vi avholdt workshops hvor vi har involvert sentrale næringslivsaktører i Sør Afrika og Norge og latt disse diskutere felles interesser. Vi har også fått innspill til utforming, innhold og liste over aktuelle lokale bedrifter som er aktuell for internasjonale internships. Dette arbeidet og denne koblingen har styrket lokale bedrifters tilgang til ny og tverrfaglig kompetanse. For å evaluere våre resultater og for å formidle våre nyvunne innsikter har vi hatt flere workshops. Disse leder frem mot en spesialutgave i en journal. Vi inviterte fagansatte ved våre 5 samarbeidsuniversitet til å diskutere pedagogiske og praktiske grep som skal gi våre studenter en verdifull internasjonal entreprenøriell læringsopplevelse. Vi fikk inn 14 bidrag, hvorav 9 nå er i andre review-runde. Spesialutgaven skal publiseres høsten 2023. Dette internasjonal forskningssamarbeidet vil peke på vellykkede elementer og forbedringspunkter i internasjonaliseringen av entreprenørskapsutdanningene i Sør Afrika og Norge. Slike innspill og vurderinger er nyttig for universitetssektoren. Som et resultat av prosjektet er 1 student og 1 fagansatt fra Sør Afrika nå i PhD-løp. Prosjekt-konsortiet har søkt om og fått UTFORSK-midler for å videreutvikle de mest vellykkede elementene fra dette INTPART-prosjektet.

The research partners in Norway and South Africa are all encouraged to develop entrepreneurial universities, create entrepreneurial mind-sets among faculty and students, as well as contributing to innovation and economic growth. They are all recognized internationally for their entrepreneurial research and education. With this INTPART project, they want to build knowledge in order to advance their already excellent entrepreneurship education and research further through: 1) cross-cultural long-term strategic collaboration, and 2) a practice-based approach closely involving industry partners. To do so, we have identified the following activities: -Four workshops with different themes: 1) Student mobility; 2) Universities and collaboration with industry, TTOs; 3) Advancing entrepreneurship education; and 4) Furthering the research collaboration. -Two Summer Schools addressing emerging issues within the ocean marine economy as well as within renewable energy Sources -Student mobility through a variety of activities. -Staff visits and guest lecturing for enhancing the international process. -Dissemination activities: our results will be disseminated as new course material and practices, increased industry interaction patterns, scientific papers, an anthology containing our summarized experience in operationalizing international student and staff interactions, conference presentations, newspaper articles, official reports and new student experiences and skills.

Funding scheme:

INTPART-International Partnerships for Excellent Education and Research

Thematic Areas and Topics

No thematic area or topic related to the project