The University of Eastern Finland's Business School is a partner in the FOstering Entrepreneurship for the BioEconomy project, or FOEBE for short, which seeks to develop bioeconomy students’ entrepreneurial mindset in order to support the bioeconomy sector’s growth in Europe. The project is funded by the European Commission through the Erasmus+ programme. In UEF, the project involves with experts in business studies and forest sciences.
The development of the bioeconomy is one of the key strategies of the EU, and it is also a critical success factor for the European Green Deal. Existing entrepreneurship education programmes are not tailored to the needs of the bioeconomy sector, which plays a part in hindering the sector’s growth and development. FOEBE seeks to be a trailblazer in bioeconomy education in Europe. The project promotes the development of entrepreneurial skills among Master’s and doctoral students in the field of the bioeconomy, while also taking aspects of sustainable development into consideration.
“The project is extremely well-suited for integrating research into teaching as part of the university’s multidisciplinary Forests and Bioeconomy research community, Professor Tommi Laukkanen from the Business School says.
All six universities involved in the European Bioeconomy University, EBU, as well as Warsaw University of Life Sciences, are participating in FOEBE. The project is coordinated by AgroParisTech (Paris Institute of Technology for Life, Food and Environmental Sciences) in France, and in addition to the University of Eastern Finland, the EBU alliance is represented by Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna, the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) in Vienna, the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart, and Wageningen University and Research. The project makes use of the expertise, resources and know-how available in the higher education institutions in developing entrepreneurship education that is tailored to the needs of the bioeconomy sector. The partners have strong links to various bioeconomy stakeholders and innovation ecosystems especially through national clusters of competence.
“FOEBE is an important opening for concrete educational collaboration within the European Bioeconomy University,” Professor Jyrki Kangas, Head of the School of Forest Sciences, says.
The mode of study on the courses will be blended, i.e. a combination of online and in-person teaching, and innovative pedagogical solutions will play a key role. Courses offered by FOEBE will be made available to Master’s and doctoral students in the field of the bioeconomy as elective courses. These elective courses are flexible and well-suited for the curricula of modern European institutions of higher education.
“By developing entrepreneurship education aimed at bioeconomy students, FOEBE plays a part in promoting their possibilities to innovate and to introduce their ideas to the markets,” says University Lecturer Helen Reijonen who is in charge of the project at the University of Eastern Finland.
The project is implemented between 1 September 2020 and 31 August 2023.
For further information, please contact: Helen Reijonen, tel. +358 50 435 2408, helen.reijonen(at)uef.fi