Innovative approaches to collaborative green venturing

Final report WP3 & 4

This report on WP 3 and 4 is a combined evaluation report on approaches developed and tested within the S4S project. Based on various theoretical pillars, such as the knowledge spill-over theory of entrepreneurship (Wagner et al., 2019), sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems (Volkmann et al., 2021), and the Theory of Change (Carman, 2010), the previously implemented WP2 (Fichter et al., 2020) provided insights and frameworks that are valuable for this report. The sections below briefly describe these relevant aspects on which we based the evaluation of each approach presented in chapter 2.

One key conclusion from WP2 is that an effective evaluation of collaborative student-business venturing activities requires an appropriate conceptual framework, a clear definition of the unit of analysis, as well as an evidence-based approach based on defined criteria and key performance indicators. Based on the theory of change, an evaluation should investigate the inputs, activities, outputs, outcomes, and impacts of the tested approaches of student-business collaboration in green venturing. In WP2 the following conceptual framework was developed, and the units of analysis were set to the curricular and extracurricular approaches of collaborative green venturing developed, re-designed and tested in the framework of WP 3 and 4 of the S4S project.

For the evaluation process three key stakeholders and targets groups were differentiated:

• Students: Does the participation in (collaborative) green venturing influence their entrepreneurial and sustainability-related competencies, their values and worldviews, their entrepreneurial mindsets, and intensions to start a business (in the long run) and their career?
• Business partners (venturing teams, start-ups, companies): How do they benefit from collaboration with students (and universities) in joint green venturing exercises? How do the outputs and outcomes of venturing activities influence the economic, environmental, and social performance of business partners and which (intended and unintended) impacts on markets, society and the environment can be observed?
• Teaching personnel: How satisfied is the involved teaching personnel with collaborative green venturing exercises and modules? How does it influence their competencies, values, and worldviews? Which impact does the exercise have on education programs and transfer activities of the respective university and on other HEIs? Is the approach scaled up or diffused?

Further, following focal aspects and guiding research questions were formulated for the description of the tested approaches and their evaluation:

Introduction

• What are the key facts about the approach? For this, a fact sheet was developed.
• What are the interests and motivations of participants (teaching personnel, students, business partners) and other stakeholders (e.g., central staff of the university) and which are the development needs?
• Who have been the key persons/promoters in setting up and implementing the module? Who were the involved partners?

Implementation and testing

• How did the process look like, what was the time frame and which steps were taken?
• What? How? When? This includes an overview of teaching materials and implementation tools. Detailed playbook, teaching material etc. can be appended.

Evaluation

• How did it go?
• What are the outputs, outcomes, and impacts of the approaches, how effective are they? Here, evidence-based insights should be provided, including student, teacher, and company perspectives.
• Which sustainable entrepreneurship competences did the students develop? Here, we developed a questionnaire on student development of sustainable entrepreneurship competencies.

Learnings

• What is new and innovative? Are there any unique elements in the design and implementation of the approach? (Innovativeness compared to a) earlier module, b) existing approaches at the respective HEI, c) other existing forms of student-business-collaboration/ other teaching concepts within the field of sustainable entrepreneurship).
• What have been the success factors, drivers, and barriers for the implementation of the approach? What are the general prerequisites for the success of these approaches? What challenges are to be expected?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the approach? Is there a need for improving and expanding existing modules or programs?
• Feasibility? Scalability? Transferability? To what extend are the modules scalable and transferable to other HEIs and regions? Future activities?

In section 1.5 we describe more in detail how the learnings from WP2 were used to develop and evaluate the collaborative student-business venturing.

You can find the entire report here.

Testimonials

Matthias Hausman (CEWE, Germany)

Michiel de Hair (Fujifilm Europe, The Netherlands)

Joakim Wren (Againity, Sweden)

Yvonne Burmann (Büfa, Germany)

Giulia Viero (ECOR, The Netherlands)

Testimonials of Academic Partners

Klaus Fichter (University of Oldenburg, Germany)

Olof Hjelm (University of Linköping, Sweden)

Frans Stel (Vennebroek Academic Services / University of Twente, The Netherlands)

Platform launched

The ScaleUp4Sustainability consortium developed the Sustainable Venturing Challenges platform. Its aim is to activate academic staff, companiesand students to tap into the potential of challenge-based learning and co-create sustainable business solutions – across sectors, disciplines, cultures and geographic boundaries.

To this end, the platform pinpoints open opportunities for collaboration in sustainable venturing. It also presents relevant information to get started with joining or creating a sustainable venturing challenge. Specifically, university educators, companies and students will find:

• an emerging database of challenge platforms, matchmakers and alliances that makes it easy to quickly find and connect to either challenge providers or challenge solvers,
• challenge profiles with information about innovative challenge-based student-business programmes and activities in sustainable venturing,
• interviews with academic staff, business leaders and university students who share their real-life experiences of co-creating sustainable solutions for real-world problems,
• a range of resources, including information on benefits of participating in and developing challenges, how to-guides and tools.

You can find the platform here.

Good news: new follow-up project

Due to Corona, the duration of the S4S-project has been extended. In addition, a new follow-up projects has been granted: "Challenge4Impact (C4I)". In this project, the academic partners continue and expand their collaboration in the next years. The focus of the new C4I-project is on international challenge-based learning programs.

Conference in Enschede (NL): "Results & future plans"

On 13/15 October, 2021, we organised a conference at the green hub of Twente University to discuss the results of the S4S-project and our future plans.

You can find the report of findings here.