Led by Marie Louise Blankesteijn (VU), researchers Alvira Fisher (VU), Jacqueline van Muijlwijk-Koezen (VU) and Rainer Harms (UT) are working on an innovative didactic method for scientific and technological entrepreneurship education. This project, NEXT_GEN_TECH_ED, funded by Horizon 2020, aims to advance knowledge sharing within innovative ecosystems. By developing this method, the researchers intend to systematically evaluate the socioeconomic impact of science and its economic spill-over effects.
Science and technology hold immense potential for addressing major societal challenges, such as faster cancer detection and technologies to monitor nitrous oxide use in traffic. Education in scientific entrepreneurship offers a way to commercially and socially leverage new scientific insights and technological innovations at an early stage, and demand for this type of education has grown rapidly at technical universities.
The researchers focus on established didactic design principles in European entrepreneurship education infrastructures, such as CERN, European XFEL in Hamburg and ESRF in Grenoble. They also examine ways to optimise the transfer of technology from universities into broader ecosystems.
The project also explores the role of research infrastructures as entrepreneurial players and educational hubs within ecosystems that connect startups, established businesses, incubators, and governmental organisations. The researchers recently published an article in the CERN IdeaSquare Journal of Experimental Innovation, presenting the first results of this collaboration.
For more information, visit the NEXT_GEN_TECH_ED website or consult the CERN IdeaSquare Journal.
