Press Release Two
New international training materials on innovation and social entrepreneurship have been published
New training materials for learning inclusive innovation and social entrepreneurship have been published in November 2024. This is the result of two years of work by the partners of the Erasmus+-funded InnoSocial project. Research and intellectual work involved experts from universities and entrepreneurs from Italy, Poland, Lithuania and Bulgaria.
This is yet another stage of the project, culminating in the publication of practical educational materials in this field. Last year, the "InnoSocial Toolkit" was released, providing substantive foundations and methodological frameworks for designing and implementing education in the area of II&SE (Inclusive Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship). This toolkit offers essential knowledge for creating frameworks to design, implement, and measure the impact of education and training in this domain. It aims to support university departments and other stakeholders in incorporating social innovations into curricula. The toolkit also served as the foundation for the development of teaching and educational resources—an academic course, which is the project's second key outcome.
The InnoSocial course includes 75 hours of training designed to introduce the principles and practices of inclusive innovation, equipping participants with the knowledge and skills to design, develop, and scale social impact initiatives. The materials present case studies of successful inclusive innovations and social enterprises. The program engages participants in experiential learning activities and group projects. The published training materials also include a syllabus for lecturers specifying the course workload, structure, learning outcomes, methods of implementation, assessment sets, and evaluation criteria. Representatives from universities, entrepreneurs, and social stakeholders from various EU countries participated in consultations during the development of these materials.
The first pilot training sessions have already been conducted for trainers and lecturers who will use these materials in their ongoing work. As part of the "Train the Trainer" workshops, more than 30 individuals from Italy, Bulgaria, Lithuania, and Poland have received certification to conduct instructional sessions. The materials are accessible to all interested parties, as they are made available under open educational resource licenses.
In the coming days, classes using the InnoSocial program will begin for students at the University of Pavia, the Social Academy of Sciences, and Vilnius University of Applied Sciences. Experiences gathered during the pilot implementation will be incorporated into the final version of the materials.
All project documents will be progressively published on the project website at https://www.innosocial.eu/. The final stage and conferences presenting the results of the work are planned for the first half of 2025.
Read in: Bulgarian, English, Italian, Lithuanian, Polish