PREFACE, a project within Leonardo da Vinci programme.
Search Conference Sept 2003
Report by Internationell kompetens AB. info@interkomp.se
Summary
PREFACE project, within the Leonardo da Vinci program, aims at developing a
model for supporting female engineering students to start up companies based
upon their studies. Partners from eleven European countries take part in the
project by sharing their experiences, analysing the problem area, developing
and trying out best practices and initiating a European training program for
the target group.
• Encouragement of women students’ companies can be seen in terms
of diversity management as means of regional and national growth.
This report mirrors the first analytic steps in the PREFACE project. One important
action so far has been to gather partners in a joint dialogue. The means to
do this has been to involve a broad participation from actors in all the countries.
At a national level, the partners have built up “focus groups”,
with stakeholders involved in the entrepreneurial process.
At a transnational level the partners have met in meetings. One of the most
important transnational actions has been to gather participants from the national
focus groups for a joint transnational dialogue. In September 2003, 60 university
teachers, students, entrepreneurs and representatives from business organisations
and career advisors from eleven European countries met up at a Search conference
in Halmstad, Sweden, to compare their experiences and ideas of development of
actions for female engineering students.
They produced a European overview of the situation today. They have also provided
best practices from their own countries, which are stepping-stones to the joint
model that this project will produce.
Do European students see common obstacles for starting up companies in the
university context? Are there common views from entrepreneurs in the different
countries? At this stage we can say a clear “yes”. When transnational
groups of students, university teachers, career advisors, entrepreneurs and
business organisations compare their experiences they can identify common needs
like:
• Pedagogical forms within university that are suitable for entrepreneurship
• Learning modules on the net, but also in courses at university
• Involvement of companies in university context, providing role models
and working life experience
• An IT-based map for Student’s Entrepreneurship providing tools,
skills and support to students
A common theme in the transnational discussions is that the individual entrepreneur
always has to balance private life and job situation. When female students are
encouraged to become entrepreneurs this is an important fact to raise:
“How can I match entrepreneurship with family life?”
Please click here to download the November 2003 Interim Report in PDF format.
Please click here to download the May 2004 Evaluation Report in PDF format.
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