European Alliance for CSR - BUSINESSEUROPE Laboratory
The context
The BusinessEurope laboratory contributes to the aims set out in the Growth and Jobs strategy and the European Commission's 2006 communication on fostering entrepreneurial mindsets through education and learning, and its Oslo recommendations.
EU citizens are on average less inclined to become entrepreneurs than US citizens. Entrepreneurial skills and attitudes are not sufficiently encouraged amongst young people.
Some organisations successfully offer enterprise education programmes to close the gap. Entrepreneurship education works particularly well where all stakeholders work together and the business world is actively involved. One approach to such involvement is the participation of entrepreneurs and business people in activities in schools and universities as mentors, coaches or simply to share their business experience.
The laboratory partners therefore decided to explore concrete pathways to foster entrepreneurship education and a more entrepreneurial mindset by stimulating business involvement in existing programmes.
Participants (non-exhaustive)
Citigroup, Daimler, European Commission, ExxonMobil, Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft, JADE, JA-YE Europe, Kuratorium der deutschen Wirtschaft für Berufsbildung, Microsoft, SEV, Stiftung der Deutschen Wirtschaft, Swedish Job & Society, VDMA, YES-European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs, ZDS.
Laboratory activities
- Collection of good practice in the field of entrepreneurship education focusing on innovative initiatives that actively involve businesses and/or business organisations.
- Dissemination of good practice and awareness-raising about the usefulness and value of entrepreneurship education and other initiatives that help stimulate a more entrepreneurial mindset as well as about the important contribution the business community can make.
- Identification of business volunteers ready to engage in existing enterprise education programmes and related initiatives.
- Facilitation of contacts/matching between business volunteers and educational programme providers through cooperation with umbrella organisations such as JA-YE and JADE.
Laboratory featured in the CSR Toolbox
Please follow the link on the CSR Toolbox website to "Human Capital", then "Stimulating an entrepreneurial mindset and promoting entrepreneuship education".
Become involved!
To discover the opportunities to become engaged in enterprise education programmes, read JA-YE Europe presentation and JADE presentation, specifying the different formulas and possible levels of engagement for business volunteers.
Interested in becoming a business volunteer? Sign up here by completing the registration form. You will be contacted shortly by the appropriate organisation in your country/region.