Euricse participates in a European project aimed at promoting cooperative entrepreneurship

4 May 2017

Euricse was endorsed by the European Commission to participate in a project that will analyse and implement entrepreneurship education programs based on the cooperative business model

The initiative will promote a cooperative spirit and entrepreneurship skills of high school and university students from all over Europe in order to improve their employability.

Trento, May 4th. The project ECOOPE – Entrepreneurial Cooperative Experience – co-funded by the European Commission with a total budget of over 300.000€ was launched in April 2017 with the aim of improving the employability of young people in Europe by providing them with relevant entrepreneurship knowledge and skills to promote the set-up of cooperatives. Euricse will bring their expertise to this project together with six other institutions from Finland, United Kingdom, Italy, Portugal and Spain.

Context

As a business model, cooperatives are a very attractive option for young people since their implementation does not require large capital investment and the responsibility is limited. Its constitution is based on the association of people who face common economic, social and cultural objectives and who distribute the results in an equitable way.

Cooperativism has proven its viability even in times of crisis: in Europe one in five persons is a member of a cooperative. There are more than 250,000 cooperatives with 123 million members employing more than 5 million people in multiple sectors throughout Europe.kelly-brito-67565

Education in entrepreneurship and cooperativism

Through the design and development of innovative training actions that can be easily integrated into secondary and university education, ECOOPE seeks to promote among young Europeans the cooperative spirit and business model as a tool to acquire social and entrepreneurial skills that enhance their employability, especially in those countries with high youth unemployment rates such as Spain, Italy and Portugal.

The objective of the first phase of the ECOOPE project is to identify and study the best programs, methodologies and tools that are being developed in Europe regarding education and training in cooperative entrepreneurship. The results will be reflected in a Best Practice Guide that will be made available to the public in order to increase awareness of the viability of this business model.

The second project phase will begin in October 2017 with the design and implementation of two pilot courses for high school and university students. The pilots training propose an innovative working formula in which students, integrated into multidisciplinary teams, will have to find solutions to real-world challenges posed by cooperatives in the participating regions.

In spring of 2018, the project will complete with an international event to disseminate the innovative content and teaching methodologies developed by members of cooperatives, colleges, universities, SMEs and other public and private institutions in various European countries.

ECOOPE

The ECOOPE project has a budget of more than 300,000 euros and is co-financed by the European Commission. The consortium is composed of seven institutions from five EU countries: University of Cantabria and Santander International Entrepreneurship Center (Spain), Lappeenranta University of Technology (Finland), University of Porto (Portugal), European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises (Italy), Co -operative College CI (United Kingdom), Portugal Entrepreneurship Education Platform (Portugal) and Industrial City of Valle del Nalón (Spain).

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