Student resources

STUDENTS

resources

 

Explore our emerging resource collection, covering everything from reports and tools to best practices and insights on sustainable venturing challenges.

REPORT

Support Services for Student-Business Collaboration: Good practice collection of support services for challenge-based student-business collaboration in sustainable entrepreneurship

ScaleUp4Sustainability

The brochure presents eight good-practice examples of support services specialised in designing, implementing and evaluating challenge-driven student-business collaboration formats offered for academic staff, university students, and business partners.

Access

REPORT

Collaborative Green Venturing: How students, companies and academic staff benefit from co-innovation for sustainability

ScaleUp4Sustainability

The report presents key results and learnings from the EU-funded Erasmus+ project “ScaleUp4Sustainabiliy”.

Access

TOGETHER, LET'S HARNESS THE POWER OF COLLABORATIVE ENTREPRENEURSHIP TO SOLVE SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGES.

Get in touch if you have questions or comments. We're happy to hear from you.

powered by ScaleUp4Sustainability
Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg
Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law
Adj. Prof. Innovation Management and Sustainability
Ammerländer Heerstr. 114-118, 26129 Oldenburg, Germany

Legal notice and data protection

The platform was created as part of the ScaleUp4Sustainability project. ScaleUp4Sustainability (Project Reference: 601150-EPP-1-2018-1-DE-EPPKA2-KA) is funded by the Erasmus+/Knowledge Alliance Programme of the European Union.

Adventure forth, venture far: The top 8 questions about participating in sustainable venturing challenges answered

STUDENTS

Adventure forth, venture far: The top 8 questions about participating in sustainable venturing challenges answered

In the decade of transformation, businesses take a leading role in the transition to a green economy. To overcome the problems they face in their quest to drive sustainable innovation, they often keep a look-out for committed students who want to be their partners and help turn their challenges into opportunities.

If you want to get involved in innovating business products, services and processes towards sustainability in collaboration with business partners, then a sustainable venturing challenge might be just right for you. To help you get started, we’ve provided some answers to common questions below. Dive in and kickstart your challenge journey.

1. What exactly do challenges in sustainable venturing entail?

Sustainable venturing challenges come in different formats. They may be organised as competitions, hackathons, workshops or even full-semester courses, to name a few. What unites them is their focus on student-business collaboration to develop innovative, sustainable solutions to companies’ real-world problems. This means that you will go much further than, for instance, listening to a guest lecture of a company presenting their business problem. Instead, companies are asking you to join the table and come up with new, exciting solutions to their challenges in a collaborative effort. This means you will work directly with the respective company (or companies) and engage with company representatives at eye-level.

2. What is challenge-based learning?

Challenge-based learning is an innovative approach to learning that focuses on students and their needs. According to the Challenge-based Learning Framework, students go through three interrelated phases as they work on real-life challenges provided by companies. In the “Engage” phase, the students get to know the problem the company faces and ask questions to study and look at the problem from various perspectives. This exploration phase is important for students as it helps them to understand and formulate the concrete challenge and move on towards the next phase, the “Investigate” phase. Here, students engage in in-depth research and collect information that is needed to build the foundation for developing ideas and solutions, guided by academic staff and company representatives who provide supportive materials and activities. In the final “Act” phase, students build on their investigations into the problem to come up with new ideas and concrete solutions which they present to the business partner and academic staff to receive feedback and determine potential for actual implementation.

3. What types of sustainable venturing challenges are there?

During a challenge that focuses on sustainable venturing, you will be involved in creating new business solutions within a company, such as innovating products, services and processes or developing new ventures such as start-ups or spin-offs. Challenges can typically be differentiated based on the following dimensions:

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Content focus

While some challenges focus more on open ideation, others will put business model development at their centre. Others again, focus on a specific sustainability theme that determines the overall direction of the challenge, for example circular economy. Which focus to opt for largely depends on your interests and learning ambitions.

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Duration

The duration of a challenge activity depends on the nature of the problem being addressed. Short-term challenges usually span one to three days. While they incorporate a number of relevant topics, these are worked on in a shorter time frame. Long-term challenges span several weeks to months. In comparison to short-term challenges, they give you more time to familiarise yourself with the challenge and to dig deeper into the subject matter at hand. You will also have more opportunities to get to know and work with the business partner. If you prefer to take a deep dive in just under a few hours or see how challenges work, short-term challenges can be a good option to begin with.

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Curricular integration

Challenges are either integrated into the curriculum or offered as a co-/extra-curricular activity. Extra-curricular challenge activities that take place outside of your regular curriculum will mean an additional time investment, but can be worthwhile to help you advance in your professional and personal development, grow your network and explore new interests and topics. It may also be a great addition to your CV, showing future employers that you take initiative to search for further learning opportunities which you are able to balance with your academic life.

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Type of collaboration

While some challenge activities focus fully on face-to-face collaboration, others might make use of hybrid formats and blend face-to-face interaction with virtual interaction. While in-person team collaboration is fun and effective, hybrid or fully virtual formats can be a great opportunity to connect to and work with companies and academic staff from other regions or countries you might not get the chance to work with otherwise.

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Study level

While many challenges on offer are open to both undergraduate and postgraduate students, some may require you to have reached postgraduate level. Check the challenge requirements to see which study level or how many credit points are required for participation.

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Student diversity

Challenge-based formats value participation of mixed student teams which are made up of students from different disciplines, universities or countries. While some challenges seek application by individual students who are then matched into teams by the challenge organisers, others might ask you to enter the challenge in a team. To connect with future teammates, you can reach out to fellow students and study partners, find like-minded student communities on social media platforms or other specialised platforms or contact relevant student associations and university departments.

4. What are the different stages of the challenge process?

Student-business challenges in sustainable venturing will typically feature the stages shown below. During kick-off, business partners present their problem to you and supply all needed information and supplementary material for you to get started. Academic staff will provide you with all relevant information as to the planned challenge procedure, important dates and if applicable, requirements for examination. As you dive into generating ideas and developing your solution to the problem, both the business partner and academic staff will be available to co-reflect different perspectives and co-develop new knowledge and ideas with you. Towards the end, you will be asked to pitch your solution to the jury as a team. Both the business partner and academic staff will use pre-defined assessment criteria to evaluate your solution and to give you feedback. Should the academic staff have an impact monitoring system in place to evaluate the outcomes of the challenge, you might be asked to participate in short surveys after or both before and after the challenge.

5. What are the roles of students, companies and academic staff during a challenge?

Students

As a participating student, you will take the role of challenge solver. This involves applying your knowledge and any expertise and skills you might acquire during the challenge to co-develop innovative ideas and solutions in a mixed student team. You will do so in constant exchange with academic staff and company representatives who provide regular feedback and opportunities for open discussion. Towards the end of the challenge, you are expected to pitch your solution to company management and academic staff who will assess the quality of your solution. You might be asked to participate in surveys and provide feedback that help the challenge organisers to evaluate and further improve the challenge activity.

Companies

Company representatives will make sure to present to you the business problem their company is facing in an understandable way. They will provide you with input and all relevant information you need to get started on investigating and developing a feasible solution. During the challenge process, company staff act as coaches to provide you with expert knowledge, support and insights along the way. They will offer regular sessions in which you can openly exchange your ideas and thoughts and co-develop ideas. During the final pitch event, they will provide you with valuable feedback on your proposed solution.

Academic staff

Academic staff will provide you with new knowledge relevant to solving the challenge, such as important methods, approaches and tools in sustainable entrepreneurship and innovation. They are there to support you and provide direction throughout each of the challenge stages, whether during research, ideation or developing your solution. They can also support you in the communication process with the company and you can always reach out to them should any questions arise.

6. What is required of students who are interested in taking part in a sustainable venturing challenge?

First and foremost, you should bring an active interest in sustainable entrepreneurship and in collaborating with businesses on the ground. Ideally, you are open to learning, working in teams with diverse backgrounds and able to take on responsibility. You should also check the specific requirements of the challenge you’re interested in such as language, study level and evaluation requirements and check your time availability for participation. Finally, a portion of curiosity and willingness to discover new perspectives can’t hurt either.

7. How do I lobby my university to take part in sustainable venturing challenges or accept ECTS from other university challenges?

If your university does not offer challenge-based activities in sustainable venturing yet, you can reach out to inquire about options to accept ECTS for other university challenges or, going a step further, to integrate challenges into the curriculum. Check who would be most suitable to approach – might this be your lecturer or department dean? Or maybe your university’s entrepreneurship hub or sustainability initiative? As you enter into discussion, there are several advantages you can bring forward. Universities are key players when it comes to driving the sustainability transformation. Entrepreneurial university-business collaboration increases the university’s field of action and presents a good opportunity to use and apply its wealth of knowledge and resources for creating positive impact, all while strengthening its innovative profile. Besides, challenge-based learning is an innovative learning approach suitable to complement traditional teaching and learning practices and provides students with real-world experiences that better prepare them for work and life – another advantage to sharpen the university’s standing and attract prospective students.

8. What happens after challenge completion?

This differs from challenge to challenge. Usually, you will receive a certificate of completion. Depending on the challenge format and agreed upon conditions with academic staff, the business partner might take up the most innovative solution(s) for implementation and continue to work with you to translate your idea into reality. Some companies might offer to buy your idea.

Z

Benefits

Discover the advantages of participating in student-business challenges in sustainable venturing.
Discover

Challenges

Explore open opportunities for participating in sustainable venturing challenges.
Explore

powered by ScaleUp4Sustainability
Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg
Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law
Adj. Prof. Innovation Management and Sustainability
Ammerländer Heerstr. 114-118, 26129 Oldenburg, Germany

Legal notice and data protection

The platform was created as part of the ScaleUp4Sustainability project. ScaleUp4Sustainability (Project Reference: 601150-EPP-1-2018-1-DE-EPPKA2-KA) is funded by the Erasmus+/Knowledge Alliance Programme of the European Union.

Companies: Resources

COMPANIES

resources

Explore our emerging resource collection, covering everything from reports and tools to best practices and insights on sustainable venturing challenges.

REPORT

Support Services for Student-Business Collaboration: Good practice collection of support services for challenge-based student-business collaboration in sustainable entrepreneurship

ScaleUp4Sustainability

The brochure presents eight good-practice examples of support services specialised in designing, implementing and evaluating challenge-driven student-business collaboration formats offered for academic staff, university students, and business partners.

Access

REPORT

Challenge-based learning: Exchange of experiences

ScaleUp4Sustainability

The report documents the results of a workshop on challenge-based learning that took place in the frame of the ScaleUp4Sustainability project in September 2021 at the University of Oldenburg, Germany. The workshop participants, mostly academic staff of project-associated higher education institutions, discussed strategies for designing sustainable venturing challenges and approaches for successful involvement of business partners.

Access

GUIDELINE

Guidelines for the evaluation of collaborative student-business venturing activities

ScaleUp4Sustainability

The manual supports both company managers and academic staff in formative evaluations of teaching and learning formats which focus on student-business collaboration in developing sustainable business ideas. The guidelines help to make transparent the costs and benefits as well as the outputs, outcomes and impacts of student-business collaboration schemes.

Access

REPORT

Collaborative Green Venturing: How students, companies and academic staff benefit from co-innovation for sustainability

ScaleUp4Sustainability

The report presents key results and learnings from the EU-funded Erasmus+ project “ScaleUp4Sustainabiliy”.

Access

TOOL COLLECTION

Database of tools and approaches for collaborative sustainable venturing

ScaleUp4Sustainability

An open access collection of more than 60 generic and specific tools and approaches suitable for collaborative sustainable venturing.

Download

REPORT

Report on evaluating leading approaches and tools in collaborative green venturing

ScaleUp4Sustainability

The report provides a conceptual framework and guidelines for the evaluation of collaborative venturing activities. Besides giving insights on the effectiveness and impacts of existing approaches and tools, it identifies unique elements, success factors and barriers of student-business collaboration in green venturing. The report also gives insight on the transferability and scalability of existing approaches and tools to other university and regional contexts.

Access

TOGETHER, LET'S HARNESS THE POWER OF COLLABORATIVE ENTREPRENEURSHIP TO SOLVE SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGES.

Get in touch if you have questions or comments. We're happy to hear from you.

powered by ScaleUp4Sustainability
Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg
Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law
Adj. Prof. Innovation Management and Sustainability
Ammerländer Heerstr. 114-118, 26129 Oldenburg, Germany

Legal notice and data protection

The platform was created as part of the ScaleUp4Sustainability project. ScaleUp4Sustainability (Project Reference: 601150-EPP-1-2018-1-DE-EPPKA2-KA) is funded by the Erasmus+/Knowledge Alliance Programme of the European Union.

The 7 steps to engage in succesful student-business collaboration in sustainable venturing

COMPANIES

Become a challenge provider: The 7 steps to engage in successful university collaboration in sustainable venturing

In the decade of transformation, businesses take a leading role in the transition to a green economy. However, they cannot do so alone, but need strong partners on their way to shifting towards more sustainable and regenerative business models that create positive environmental and social impact.
Challenge your corporate strategy and processes by providing a challenge to committed university students who are eager to drive real impact. Challenge-based learning with academia is an innovative collaboration approach that is gaining more traction and delivering remarkable business results. Be at the forefront of this exciting development and start experimenting and establishing which challenge formats in sustainable venturing work best to help your company thrive.

To help kickstart your challenge journey, we take you through each phase of the “sustainable venturing challenge cycle” from the perspective of business partners. We differentiate between the three phases “Inform & Prepare”, “Connect & Co-design” and “Implement & Reflect”, which are detailed below.

Inform & Prepare

Select a challenge format suited to your company’s needs

Providing a challenge to students requires thorough preparation and planning. This entails becoming familiar with the challenge-based learning approach and getting to know the different features of sustainable venturing challenges. The following dimensions provide guidance as you decide on and select the right format for your company’s needs:

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Challenge focus

Which focus would you like to take? From providing a thematic challenge which focuses on a specific field you are active in to open ideation or business model generation for specific ideas – which focus to take in your challenge will depend on the business problem you are facing and the input from academic staff.

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Duration

In general, we differentiate between short-term challenges, which usually span one to three days, and long-term challenges, which span several weeks to months. While short-term challenges require far less upfront investment in terms of time and personnel, long-term challenges give students more time to internalise your business problem and to dive deeper into the subject matter at hand. As a result, these solutions usually exhibit a higher degree of detail and sophistication.

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Number of university partners

You will need to decide on the number of universities you’d like to partner and collaborate with as this influences the challenge process and outcome. Developing a challenge together with several universities brings the benefit of receiving a multitude of solutions to your problem and means less intensive supervision of a larger number of students. Partnering with only one university, for instance the local university in your region, will enable you to engage in more in-depth collaboration and supervision of a smaller number of students.

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Type of collaboration

Which kind of collaboration suits your company? While it is recommended to use traditional face-to-face collaboration, virtual or hybrid collaboration provides for a convenient and flexible option if you’d like to offer an international challenge. Here, you will need to find the right proportion of face-to-face and virtual activities. In the case of fully virtual collaboration, you need to ensure a good level of connectivity and communication with academic staff and students.

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Study level

Depending on the focus of your challenge, you have to decide on whether your challenge will be open to undergraduate or postgraduate students, or both. This will depend on the experience level you deem necessary to work on the challenge you provide.

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Student diversity

The challenge-based learning approach values participation of mixed student teams which are made up of students from different disciplines, universities and countries. Where possible, configure a diverse student team as this enriches team creativity and in effect, the quality of solutions delivered.

Gain an understanding about the role of business partners in sustainable venturing challenges  

Providing a sustainable venturing challenge to university students can be energising for business partners and educators alike. However, given that it comprises a high level of co-creation, it requires additional effort in terms of involvement and time. During the challenge activity or programme, you will engage in multiple roles and it is important to develop a good understanding of what these individual roles entail:

Company representative

You will be responsible for representing your company in academia, both to university staff and students. Acting as intermediary between your company management and the university, you engage in managing and maintaining the challenge process, ensuring smooth collaboration and communicating expectations on both sides.

Coach

Given the co-creational nature of challenges, you work side-by-side with students to develop a solution to your business problem. As you do so, you provide the students with expert knowledge linked to your specific field and give input on company- and industry-related topics. Besides engaging in direct discussion, you might also provide supplementary data and methodological insights, if useful for advancing the challenge process.

Mentor

As the students get to know the business problem you are facing and begin to develop new ideas, it will be important to provide them with support and the right tools along the way. Sharing your experience and giving insights into project management and planning, proper time management and delegation as well as communication and negotiation will provide them with necessary guidance and help to boost their motivation for solving the challenge.

Jury member and assessor

At the end of the challenge, it will be your task to evaluate the student ideas and solutions and check their potential for implementation at your company. Usually, this takes place in the form of a final pitch event. Here, the academic staff will ensure that all materials and systems necessary for you to fulfil your role as jury member are provided.

Connect & Co-design

Scout for suitable academic partners

Finding a suitable academic partner largely depends on the business problem you want to provide and how you envision to engage in the challenge process. But where to get started with your search for universities suitable for cooperation, in the first place? There are several possible ways to scout for the right academic partner:

Individual professional networks

Start by scanning your own professional network and check your contact databases for suitable contacts or those that can refer you. Also consider rediscovering dormant ties and relationships that have faded out of view. In the case of prior experience in academia, reconnect with past employers.

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University transfer offices

University transfer offices are a suitable first point of contact to inquire about opportunities for collaboration. Transfer office staff can also redirect and put you in touch with a specific university department they deem suitable based on your requirements.

University entrepreneurship support

Reach out to entrepreneurship support centres at universities to learn of ongoing activities and venturing formats to see whether your proposed challenge activity fits with their programme.

Digital platforms

There are several actors who have specialised in connecting companies interested providing business challenges with suitable universities. Browse our emerging database of sustainable venturing challenge platforms and matchmakers to see whether there’s a suitable university partner for your individual needs.

Media announcements and platforms

Stay abreast of the latest news from the university ecosystem, subscribe to receive regular press information from specific innovation-oriented universities or browse media platforms specialised in higher education to learn of universities interested in collaborating with business partners.

Check compatibility

Once you have identified a potential university partner, there are several key criteria that should be considered and cross-checked, and which, if met, lay the foundation for building a solid partnership, including:

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Innovation orientation

Does the university’s innovation orientation fit your innovation endeavour and the challenge format you envision to implement?

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Impact orientation

Is the university aiming to generate impact through the collaboration? Together with you, is the academic staff willing to develop and set clear impact objectives?

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Sustainability orientation

What is the company’s strategy and level of engagement regarding environmental and social sustainability? Does it suit the intent of co-developing sustainable ideas and solutions?

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Resource availability

Do you both dispose of the necessary resources to ensure a fruitful collaboration, for instance with regards to time and personnel?

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Transparency

Is the university willing to share all necessary information, know-how and data to ensure that the challenge is designed and implemented in an effective way?

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Commitment

What drives you both to co-design and co-implement the sustainable venturing challenge? Collaboration in venturing challenges requires upfront commitment and the willingness to interact with an outside actor who brings in different values and working approaches. Does the university’s level of commitment and intent fit with your yours?

Discuss requirements, set conditions and co-design challenge

Once you have identified a suitable academic partner, you should enter into discussion to discuss key requirements and together, begin to prepare the challenge. To ensure successful collaboration, the following topics should form the basis for discussion:

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Managing expectations

Make sure to clarify expectations early on in the partnership process. Managing and aligning expectations is important for ensuring a good collaboration. This includes defining the role you will take on as business partner, but also clarifying the roles of academic staff and students in the challenge process. It is also important to discuss how much time and resources each of you will invest in preparing and implementing the challenge activity or programme. It is also recommended to discuss the intended learning objectives for students. The most important things you decide on should be documented in project plans and be set forth in a formal agreement. Also check in advance whether you wish to set up a non-disclosure agreement and prepare this with the university’s legal services, if necessary. Also discuss who receives what rights to the results produced.

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Defining challenges

Discuss how to frame and communicate the business problem to the students. It is important that the challenge is neither formulated too broadly nor too narrowly. It should be open enough to foster students’ creativity and out-of-the-box thinking, but concrete enough to provide them with a sufficient degree of clarity and to not overwhelm them. It can be helpful to ask the following question: “What can be done to create a solution to the problem?” This question leads to a challenge and contains a lot of learning possibilities for the students. Asking how to solve a problem goes in the wrong direction (at least in terms of following the challenge-based learning approach), as it suggests that the solution is already known and the students are only to carry out operative implementation.

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Handling VUCA

VUCA is an acronym that stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity and is used to describe the nature of challenges. Both sides should be aware of this and discuss how to handle it.

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Choosing suitable collaboration spaces

Based on the duration and type of collaboration, determine which collaboration and meeting spaces you will need. Also consider whether you would like to provide your company facilities as a learning location for the students. If you engage in virtual collaboration, you will also have to give thought to the design of the virtual collaboration spaces.

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Preparatory training

Discuss with the academic staff whether and in what way training to prepare for your role as coach and mentor to the students will be necessary.

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Implementing student ideas and solutions

You should reflect on the “after-phase” of the challenge. In the case that you decide to work with the developed student ideas and solutions, how will you go about implementing and measuring the impact of the implemented solutions? How will you involve the students in this process?

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Assessing and grading student teams

How do you plan on assessing the students’ ideas and solutions and which evaluation criteria will you use? Together with the educators, you should decide on whether you will grade the final ideas and whether your company will issue official certification for the students’ achievements.

Implement & Reflect

Implement the challenge programme or activity following the different stages of the challenge process

Student-business challenges in sustainable venturing will typically feature the stages shown below. In each of these stages, companies and academic staff are involved to a varying extent. As a business partner, your input during the kick-off of the challenge format is extremely important for setting the stage and making sure that students can develop a sense of motivation and take ownership of the challenge they derive from your business problem. This includes supplying material which includes information on your company activities, structure and strategy, as well as background information about the problem associated with the challenge. You might also include information on your expectations to the students and pose specific questions related to the topic that you want the students to investigate for you. Academic staff will provide student guidelines which detail the planned challenge procedure and the expected role of students, academic staff and the business partner.

Depending on the level of engagement agreed on, the business partners make time available to act as coaches and mentors during the stages in which the students generate ideas and develop a concrete solution. As regards the learning process during challenges, the widely recognised Challenge-based Learning Framework formulates three interrelated phases: “Engage”, “Investigate” and “Act”. In the engagement phase, challenge participants explore the given problem and based on this, move towards formulating a challenge. The investigation phase involves in-depth research and analysis which result in multiple perspectives and new ideas. Refining these ideas leads to the final phase of action in which the participants eventually develop a concrete solution. During the presentation of the student solutions, business partners act as jury members alongside the academic staff and together, assess the proposed solutions.
Analyse data to evaluate and improve the challenge

The assessment and evaluation will be managed by academic staff to a large extent, but will involve your support to assess and evaluate the outcomes of the challenge. This will ensure that all involved can grasp the impact of their commitment and in the case of continued collaboration, improve the challenge activity or programme with regard to efficiency and effectiveness.

If you would like to measure and improve the impact of your challenge activity or programme, the “Guidelines for the evaluation of collaborative student-business venturing activities” are a suitable resource. The manual is aimed at both company managers and academic staff and introduces approaches to make transparent the costs, benefits as well as the outputs, outcomes and impacts of student-business collaboration schemes in sustainable venturing. It also shows how to identify the strengths and weaknesses of existing teaching and learning schemes, and provides insights on how to improve and develop them further.

Z

Benefits

Discover the advantages of driving university-business collaboration in sustainable venturing.
Discover

Resources

Explore a range of guidelines, playbooks and tools for collaborative sustainable venturing.
Explore

powered by ScaleUp4Sustainability
Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg
Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law
Adj. Prof. Innovation Management and Sustainability
Ammerländer Heerstr. 114-118, 26129 Oldenburg, Germany

Legal notice and data protection

The platform was created as part of the ScaleUp4Sustainability project. ScaleUp4Sustainability (Project Reference: 601150-EPP-1-2018-1-DE-EPPKA2-KA) is funded by the Erasmus+/Knowledge Alliance Programme of the European Union.

Academic staff: Resources

ACADEMIC STAFF

resources

Explore our emerging resource collection, covering everything from reports and tools to best practices and insights on sustainable venturing challenges.

REPORT

Support Services for Student-Business Collaboration: Good practice collection of support services for challenge-based student-business collaboration in sustainable entrepreneurship

ScaleUp4Sustainability

The brochure presents eight good-practice examples of support services specialised in designing, implementing and evaluating challenge-driven student-business collaboration formats offered for academic staff, university students, and business partners.

Access

REPORT

Challenge-based learning: Exchange of experiences

ScaleUp4Sustainability

The report documents the results of a workshop on challenge-based learning that took place in the frame of the ScaleUp4Sustainability project in September 2021 at the University of Oldenburg, Germany. The workshop participants, mostly academic staff of project-associated higher education institutions, discussed strategies for designing sustainable venturing challenges and approaches for successful involvement of business partners.

Access

GUIDELINE

Guidelines for the evaluation of collaborative student-business venturing activities

ScaleUp4Sustainability

The manual supports both academic staff and company managers in formative evaluations of teaching and learning formats which focus on student-business collaboration in developing sustainable business ideas. The guidelines help to make transparent the costs and benefits as well as the outputs, outcomes and impacts of student-business collaboration schemes.
Access

QUESTIONNAIRE

Student questionnaire for the evaluation of student-business challenges in sustainable venturing

ScaleUp4Sustainability

A student questionnaire suitable for use in the evaluation of student-business challenges in sustainable venturing.

Access

GUIDELINE

Guidelines for explorative student interviews

ScaleUp4Sustainability

A guideline for conducting explorative student interviews in the frame of evaluating student-business collaboration in sustainable venturing.

Access

GUIDELINE

Guidelines for explorative interviews with business partners

ScaleUp4Sustainability

A guideline for conducting explorative interviews with business partners in the frame of evaluating student-business collaboration in sustainable venturing.

Access

REPORT

Collaborative Green Venturing: How students, companies and academic staff benefit from co-innovation for sustainability

ScaleUp4Sustainability

The report presents key results and learnings from the EU-funded Erasmus+ project “ScaleUp4Sustainabiliy”.

Access

TOOL COLLECTION

Database of tools and approaches for collaborative sustainable venturing

ScaleUp4Sustainability

An open access collection of more than 60 generic and specific tools and approaches suitable for collaborative sustainable venturing.

Download

REPORT

Report on evaluating leading approaches and tools in collaborative green venturing

ScaleUp4Sustainability

The report provides a conceptual framework and guidelines for the evaluation of collaborative venturing activities. Besides giving insights on the effectiveness and impacts of existing approaches and tools, it identifies unique elements, success factors and barriers of student-business collaboration in green venturing. The report also gives insight on the transferability and scalability of existing approaches and tools to other university and regional contexts.

Access

QUESTIONNAIRE

Student questionnaire for evaluating the development of sustainable entrepreneurship competencies as a result of student-business challenges in sustainable venturing

ScaleUp4Sustainability

A student questionnaire for the evaluation of the development of sustainable entrepreneurship competencies in students at higher education institutions. The questionnaire is based on the “Validated Competence Framework for Sustainable Entrepreneurship” developed by Ploum et al. (2018).

Access

GUIDELINE

Guidelines for explorative interviews with academic staff

ScaleUp4Sustainability

A guideline for conducting explorative interviews with academic staff at higher education institutions in the frame of evaluating student-business collaboration in sustainable venturing.

Access

TOGETHER, LET'S HARNESS THE POWER OF COLLABORATIVE ENTREPRENEURSHIP TO SOLVE SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGES.

Get in touch if you have questions or comments. We're happy to hear from you.

powered by ScaleUp4Sustainability
Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg
Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law
Adj. Prof. Innovation Management and Sustainability
Ammerländer Heerstr. 114-118, 26129 Oldenburg, Germany

Legal notice and data protection

The platform was created as part of the ScaleUp4Sustainability project. ScaleUp4Sustainability (Project Reference: 601150-EPP-1-2018-1-DE-EPPKA2-KA) is funded by the Erasmus+/Knowledge Alliance Programme of the European Union.

Students: The top 5 reasons to participate in a sustainable venturing challenge

STUDENTS

The top 5 benefits of participating in sustainable venturing challenges

Sustainable venturing challenges come in different formats – from competitions and creathons to ideation workshops and full-semester courses. At their core, they provide a great opportunity for students from all study levels to work collaboratively and develop sustainable solutions to real-world problems with support from corporate and academic mentors. As a participating student, you benefit from this experience in many different ways:

01 Gain practical experience in sustainable venturing

Taking part in a sustainable venturing challenge enables you to experience new ways of learning at university. Going beyond traditional learning formats, you get to directly interact with and learn from professionals who are at the forefront of innovation and sustainable business development in their companies and who would like to work with you at eye-level to develop your solutions to their corporate challenges. In this way, you get to learn about how to integrate innovative, sustainable ideas into existing business models or transform ideas into viable sustainable ventures, whilst also receiving the opportunity to immediately apply your new learnings into practice.

02 Strengthen your 21st century skills

Besides valuable learnings about how to develop and implement eco-innovations and start a new green business, you also get to expand important competencies needed for 21st century learning such as collaborative working, communication, and critical as well as creative thinking. These are crucial skills to build along your student journey and can help you further succeed in your studies, boost your career readiness and help you achieve your professional goals.

03 Work in an international and multidisciplinary environment

Throughout the challenge process, you get to meet and interact with people from all over the world. Working in multidisciplinary and international teams will help you cultivate an open mindset, build your intercultural skills and allow you to exchange different perspectives and ideas with other students as well as academic and company staff – all indispensable in today’s global and interconnected world.

04 Boost your professional network and career opportunities

By connecting with leading companies and working in direct exchange with company staff, you receive exposure to entrepreneurial careers and role models at an early stage in your studies. This can help you expand your professional network and increases your chances of gaining further practical experience in the future, such as internships, master thesis projects, or even employability when it comes to starting your career.

05 Make a sustainable impact by solving real-world problems

By partnering directly with companies and leading professionals to work on their existing challenges, you learn how to design and develop solutions such as new services, products and processes that have the potential to contribute to sustainable change on a local to global scale. In this way, you can make a real impact in the world as a university student. Highly innovative student teams receive the opportunity to further develop and implement their solutions, with the founding of start-ups and spin-offs being a possibility.

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Partake in a Challenge

Learn how to kickstart your challenge journey and develop sustainable solutions with companies.
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Challenges

Explore open opportunities for participating in sustainable venturing challenges.
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powered by ScaleUp4Sustainability
Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg
Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law
Adj. Prof. Innovation Management and Sustainability
Ammerländer Heerstr. 114-118, 26129 Oldenburg, Germany

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The platform was created as part of the ScaleUp4Sustainability project. ScaleUp4Sustainability (Project Reference: 601150-EPP-1-2018-1-DE-EPPKA2-KA) is funded by the Erasmus+/Knowledge Alliance Programme of the European Union.