The goal of BIOINNO is to develop an accelerated route to entrepreneurship education to ready the next generation of talents to turn vision into reality. Besides, BIOINNO proposes an innovation transfer model between Industry and Academia to foster a bi-directional flow of knowledge, research and innovation. In addition, due to cross-border collaboration in research and education that has recently grown along with the development of information and communication technologies, the proposed model envisaged the mobility of students and teachers between partners’ institutions, taking into account economic, political and cultural considerations.
BIOINNO will also provide the educational prerequisites needed to enable students to develop their own ideas and build self-confidences, and to foster the successful birth and development of innovation-driven ventures in Europe. This will be achieved during the twenty-four months participatory and collaborative education pilot project through elite entrepreneurial undergraduate and graduate programs, crash course, internship, online and offline networking, enterprise day, business plan competition and incentive systems, and elevator pitch competition.
Eight multidisciplinary partners (3 Universities, 1 European business network, 1 National Development Agency, 1 Innovation Centre grouping numerous academic spin-off and research institutions, 1 Innovation and R&D company, 1 Marketing company) spanning multiple disciplines will collectively achieve this innovation in education by:
- spreading the spirit of enterprise by providing educational activities to inspire and build skills in the practise of entrepreneurship;
- elevating business awareness among professors and students and supporting and initiating academic entrepreneurship behaviour by implementing innovative educational activities integrating technological and market knowledge into the curricula;
- building a collaborative, multi-disciplinary approach to an academia-business partnership to produce the synergies necessary to substantially transform education;
- developing practical and experiential learning based on real-life situations in which students take a more active involvement in their education;
- establishing a supporting network of experienced entrepreneurs and practitioners, academics, industry partners, business angels, venture capitalists, representatives of government entities and regulatory agencies, and enterprise centers to support the students and professors in their academic entrepreneurship activities.
BIOINNO objectives will be achieved through pilot activities that will demonstrate specifically how the alliances of knowledge can be realized in entrepreneurship education in biotechnology, a key area in the development of Europe’s innovative potential. The biotechnology industry is one of the dynamic fields, which penetrates many other areas. Thus, integrating entrepreneurship education and activities in biotechnology curricula can have a significant effect on the creativity, innovativeness and entrepreneurial intentions of biotechnology future graduates.
BIOINNO programs and activities have novel characteristics as they expose students to innovation and entrepreneurship in biotechnology, focus on plant and industrial biotechnology, and provide hands-on entrepreneurial practices within a variety of innovative biotechnologies.