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  • VCP Forum: innovative teaching through the pandemic

    VCP Forum: innovative teaching through the pandemic

    What is the topic that can connect 35 educators, from 18 teaching institutions, across five different continents, into one Zoom call? The answer is Venture Creation Programs, also known as VCPs.

    By Karoline Lund Johansen

    The VCP Forum is run by Engage and is a annual event that usually takes place as a two-day conference in October. It is a forum where teaching institutions offering Venture Creation Programs meet to share experiences, challenges, science, and good-case practices with one another. 

    Venture Creation Programs

    Venture creation programs, VCPs, are educational programs where students start a business as part of their education. Read more about VCPs here.

    The VCP Forum for 2020 was planned as a two-day event in beautiful Buckingham, England. However, the pandemic made this difficult to arrange and the event is therefore postponed to 2022. Instead, the NTNUs School of Entrepreneurship and Engage invited VCP teaching institutions worldwide, to a digital mini-conference. 

    Challenges and possibilities

    Even Haug Larsen, Assistant Professor at NTNU School of Entrepreneurship and project manager for the VCP Forum, explains that to ensure continuity for the forum and maintain a growing network, it was essential to find alternative means to host the forum this year. Larsen tells us that they waited to host the online meeting until March 2021 so that everyone would get a chance to get a little distance and some perspective on the pandemic, which was the focus of this year’s conference. 

    The pandemic created many VCP educators’ struggles, such as delivering high-quality education and guidance to the students and their ventures. However, the pandemic also required educators to become innovators: New communication channels and new classroom structures have opened up new options for educators. While the institutions now will seek to go back to in-person learning, they will also continue using and improving the tools and methods developed during the pandemic.

    The future of digital solutions

    The digital version of the forum was a great success. This new digital way of delivering a the VCP Forum has also given new inputs on developing the forum to be better in the future. 

    “Some of the most engaging discussions were in a segment where students from the NTNU School of Entrepreneurship talked about the challenges the pandemic has presented them with. Having the perspective from students present at the forum is something that we definitely will continue to do in the future.” 

    Even Haug Larsen, Assistant Professor, NTNU School of Entrepreneurship

    Since the digital version of the forum was so successful, will this affect how future VCP Forums are carried out?

    “The feedback from most of the participants is that they see the benefit of meeting both online and physically. We are looking at ways we can do both, maybe every other year online and every other year physically.”

    Even Haug Larsen, Assistant Professor, NTNUs School of Entrepreneurship

    No matter what position we have found ourselves in this year, whether it is as an event organiser, educator, student, or something completely different, this past year has been a year where we explored the possibilities the online world offers. Even though we have found many benefits to this new existence of ours, we have also discovered its limitations. It is still impossible to replace the benefit of the in-person networking that happens in a lunch break or to simulate the engaging one-to-one conversations you have in the coffee line during a 15-minute break in between classes.

    Make sure to check out our article about how Engage put together a list of universities offering venture creation programs here.

  • SUPER: Student-active learning through “wicked problems”

    SUPER: Student-active learning through “wicked problems”

    To enable students to tackle the complex challenges of tomorrow, we will need to change the educational methods of how students learn. The project SUPER will look at how student-active learning can make students better equipped to tackle “wicked problems”.

    By Tina Larsen

    In today’s society, we often face complex challenges that are difficult and almost impossible to solve. These are often referred to as “wicked problems” – a problem that does not have a clear solution. Students in higher education are often drilled in what we can refer to as “tame problems” – a problem that can be solved by choosing and applying the correct algorithm. However, this does not enable students to cope with the complex challenges we face today. To enable students to work with “wicked problems”, we will need to change the educational methods in our education system. Engage has therefore co-initiated a project called SUPER which has been granted support by DIKU. Through interdisciplinary innovation projects that aim to work with “wicked” problems, the SUPER-project will try to understand best practice, as well as develop, test and evaluate student-active learning.

    About the project

    In order to tackle “wicked problems”, students must build a holistic understanding of the problem and experience interdisciplinary collaboration early in the course of study. An important challenge for all education for the future will be to change students’ attitudes from finding the right answer to facing wicked problems. The fact that problems are ambiguous, even “wicked”, and thus have neither an unambiguous formulation nor a solution, does not mean that you should not formulate or try to solve them. The main goal with the SUPER-project is therefore to contribute to student-active learning. This will be achieved through:

    1. Interdisciplinary innovation projects with “wicked problems”
    2. In collaboration with external partners
    3. In adapted physical learning areas
    4. With extensive use of formative evaluation

    There are several challenges in facilitating such projects. First, a culture of sharing across faculties is needed to foster the required interdisciplinarity. Furthermore, the collaboration with external partners must be perceived as useful and relevant for all parties, and more knowledge is needed on how to formulate issues and facilitate good learning processes together with external partners.

    “The challenge is that the external partner has a need and desire for what the students should look at, which is often close to reality. The educator may, however, have a different need, where he / she wants the project to fit the literature on the syllabus list and the learning objectives for the subject. In addition, the students themselves have an idea of what motivates / gives ownership and what does not. In this project, we will look at how to proceed in practice to balance these three needs, so that it provides value to all parties”

    Dag Håkon Haneberg, Project manager

    Students also need good physical framework conditions and a learning environment to realize the projects, which requires coordination of resources, competence and facilities. Furthermore, projects with wicked problems from various external partners, may present additional challenges for the educators in providing formative as well as objective summative assessments of students’ projects.

    The start-phase and the way forward

    In the first phase of the project, the project team will map out and try to understand the current situation at both NTNU and Nord University. They will look at what type of educational practice exists and how different educators consider and practice involvement of external partners, interdisciplinary, assessment systems, etc. Haneberg believes this review will give the project important input. When they come across someone who has found a smart solution, they will help spread it or develop it into something that can benefit more people. The ambition of the project is to contribute to the renewal of student-active learning and to create some easy-to-understand guidelines that can be used by educators.

    “We want to create some experience-based ideas and advice. We want to say: These are things to think about; this is how it has been done and this is how it worked”

    Dag Håkon Haneberg, Project manager

    SUPER

    SUPER is organized into five work packages (WPs). These are:

    • (WP1) creating an interdisciplinary culture for sharing (WP2) real-life cases and projects from external partners
    • (WP2) realistic cases and projects from external partners
    • (WP3) resources for physical realization through workshops, labs and learning areas.
    • (WP4) formative and summative assessment of interdisciplinary innovation projects
    • (WP5) competence building, competence dissemination and coordination between WPs

    Each WP has the phases (1) Understand, (2) Develop, (3) Try out, (4) Evaluate and (5) Communicate.

  • Facilitating digital mobility in international exchange programs

    Facilitating digital mobility in international exchange programs

    By Marcus Stensland

    Over the last year, no human being on the planet has been left unaffected by the global pandemic. Whether economic, social, or health-wise, everyone has had their daily routines drastically changed. The educational sector is no exception, and during the past year, they had to think in innovative ways to keep the state of education as normal as possible. Nord University Business School in Bodø have tested methods that battle the issue of internationalization and exchange programs during the pandemic.

    How can innovation solve the exchange issue? 

    Sandra Wiik, a consultant at Nord University Business School, found an innovative way to help students who were not able to go abroad one semester last year.

    “It all started with the annual internationalization conference ‘EAIE’ being cancelled due to the pandemic. Instead, they chose to do it digitally with different speakers and writers sharing their thoughts. Windesheim University of Applied Sciences launched the idea of hosting a virtual exchange program during the autumn semester of 2020, and I immediately sent them an email to show our interest in the project”.

    Sandra Wiik, consultant, Nord University

    Following great interest from multiple universities across Europe, Windesheim decided to go through with the idea of a virtual exchange program.

    In essence, the virtual exchange program looked like this: 

    • The participants were split into 4 people groups across universities and countries.
    • Every participant created an avatar, and all met in a virtual space called “Virbela”.
    • Virbela was used to meet other participants, host lectures, and have team meetings.
    • Each team was assigned to play the business game ‘The Blue Connection’ by Inchange.
    • Over the course of 7 weeks, the teams had to manage a fictional bike factory and make their economy as circular as possible.
    (Screenshot, Virbela, youtube.com)

    New horizons for landlocked students

    Henrik Holm Tvinnereim, from Nord University Business School, had the chance to participate in the virtual exchange last semester.

    “I got an email from the business school saying they wanted students to do trial runs for the virtual exchange program. I immediately thought it would be a great opportunity to get to know students from other countries, so I applied right away”.

    Henrik Holm Tvinnereim, International Marketing student, Nord university

    Henrik was one of 50 students who participated and thinks that the socialization aspect of such an exchange program is more important than the educational.

    “Personally, I wasn’t that hung up on what type of business or entrepreneurial skills we were going to learn, but rather, the possibility to further develop and strengthen my linguistic skills. I also learned a lot about circular economy, but the networking benefits were even more valuable to me”.

    Henrik Holm Tvinnereim, International Marketing student, Nord university

    Tvinnereim was teamed up with students from England, Germany and Poland. The program in total included students from Nord University, Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences, University of Lincoln, Technische Hochschule Ostwestfalen-Lippe, and Heilbronn University of Applied Sciences.

    The potential of a virtual exchange

    Although just a trial run, Wiik believes that this format of international exchange can be highly advantageous in the future.

    “A big part of why we believe in the potential of this form of exchange, is the opening of new doors. Not all students get the opportunity to travel abroad for a whole semester, for example due to having a family or studying a degree that doesn’t fit the traditional exchange format. With the digital mobility that this exchange program can open the door for virtual exchange for a lot of students”.

    Sandra Wiik, consultant, Nord University

    The virtual exchange program was hosted by Windesheim University of Applied Sciences. Nord University Business School was one of 6 participating universities. Engage was not involved in this particular program, but are always interested in showcasing innovative methods to educate, especially on digital platforms. This article is meant for showcasing the innovative method used to perform an international exchange program, but Engage did not contribute to it. To read more about how Engage contributes to innovative education, see our “Educators” section at engage-centre.no

  • Engage søker kommunikasjonsmedarbeidere

    Engage søker kommunikasjonsmedarbeidere

    Frist for å søke er 1. Juni.

    Medieteamet består av studenter fra både Nord Universitet og NTNU, hvor hovedbasen til teamet vil være på Gløshaugen i Trondheim. Du vil også jobbe tett med staben i Engage, og ha tilgang til ressurser innad i organisasjonen.

    Medieteamet er ansvarlig for den daglige driften av kommunikasjonsarbeidet i Engage, og vil innebære alt fra redaksjonelle saker, artikler, film- og video, sosiale medier, hjemmeside, samt å legge nye kommunikasjonsstrategier for organisasjonen som helhet. Arbeidsspråket vil være både norsk og engelsk, og interesse for innovasjon og entreprenørskap er viktig, men ikke et krav til forkunnskaper. Arbeidet vil kreve at du er fremoverlent og søkende, da dette er en rolle med mye frihet hvor det er viktig at du tar initiativ, og det er et krav at du klarer å jobbe selvstendig.

    Dine hovedoppgaver:

    • Skrive og publisere artikler på norsk og engelsk innunder aktuell tematikk
    • Mindre endringer på vår WordPress-baserte nettside engage-centre.no (1 av stillingene har weboppgaver i tillegg)

    Vi søker deg som:

    • Er nysgjerrig og liker å snakke med folk
    • Ser muligheter og tør å utforske
    • Har en klar fortellerstemme
    • Liker å skrive, både på engelsk og norsk
    • Har interesse for webdesign eller webutvikling (1 av stillingene har weboppgaver i tillegg)
    • Student ved NTNU og har minimum to semester igjen av utdanningen

    Arbeidssted: Trondheim

    Stillingen er oppdragsbasert og betales på timebasis med stud.ass-lønn.

    Tar du utfordringen? Send CV og en kort tekst hvor du:

    • Skriver litt om deg selv
    • Hvorfor du er motivert til denne jobben

    Send til medieteam.engage@gmail.com.

    Frist for å søke er 1. Juni.

    Les mer om Engage her:
    Hjemmeside: www.engage-centre.no/
    Facebook: www.facebook.com/engagesfu/
    Instagram: Engage_SFU.

  • Spark* ignites the entrepreneurial spirit in students – and the curiosity of researchers

    Spark* ignites the entrepreneurial spirit in students – and the curiosity of researchers

    By Lise Aaboen, professor, NTNU

    The impact of Spark* in new book about research on Business and Technology Incubation and Acceleration

    Spark* is an important member of Engage and the student entrepreneurship ecosystem at NTNU. All students with a venture idea are welcome to join Spark* as an extracurricular activity. Students with some entrepreneurial experience guide other students in how to develop their ventures further. Skills and competencies from NTNU School of Entrepreneurship students and other student entrepreneurs is thereby spread to students in all disciplines. The events and the community surrounding Spark* also constitute and important context for entrepreneurial activities. It is therefore easy to understand that students, educators and university managers find Spark* interesting. But why do researchers also find Spark* interesting?

    Students with some entrepreneurial experience guide other students

    The majority of studies on entrepreneurs that are receiving guidance focus on mentors or coaches that could be characterized as experts of their field with far more experience and knowledge about the subject compared to the entrepreneur. The rather unique feature of Spark* is that the guidance is provided by someone who have maybe one more year of entrepreneurial experience compared to the entrepreneur. The provided guidance have advantages such as frequent availability, informality and high-level task relatedness that provide effect on the student entrepreneurs’ skill development.

    Student entrepreneurs have other needs

    Student entrepreneurs are less concerned with large investments, tangible resources and large office spaces in order to develop their ventures. A small co-working space is available as well as opportunities to apply for small amounts of seed money to build a very first prototype. However, the recruitment of skilled student team members with the technical knowledge needed for the products to be developed is the most essential activity in addition to networking.

    Current and future research on Spark*

    In ‘Handbook of Research on Business and Technology Incubation and Acceleration’ edited by Sarfraz A. Mian, Magnus Klofsten and Wadid Lamine, a bookchapter about Spark* is one of around 30 chapters exploring incubation and acceleration of ventures. The chapter about Spark* focus in particular on the effects of time and guidance on the skill development and two long-time Spark*-members are among the authors. The other chapters in the book focus on the incubation concept, incubators as part of ecosystems, incubators in different national contexts and factors that are important for incubation. There is still a lot to explore in Spark*. For instance, there are still many processes connected to the guidance activity, the venture creation process and the student learning processes that are not fully investigated from a research point of view. Furthermore, the Spark* concept is currently being established at other campuses in Norway and internationally, thus providing opportunities to study contextual issues.

    More information about the book here

    More research about Spark*:

    Haneberg, D.H. 2019. Entrepreneurial learning as an effectual process. The Learning Organization. 26 (6): 631-647.

    Haneberg, D.H. & Aaboen, L. 2020. Incubation of technology-based student ventures: The importance of networking and team recruitment. Technology in Society. 63. 101402.

  • Entrepreneurship education in higher music education

    Entrepreneurship education in higher music education

    By Tina Larsen

    Being an entrepreneur is about recognizing and solving problems to create value, whether it’s cultural, environmental, social or economic value. Musicians create lots of value – the cultural and esthetic realm is embedded in what they do. The challenge is how they meet those values and how they bring it into the economic realm. The musical “product” is something that we humans deeply value, but in 2021 we have become used to not paying for it as Spotify and streaming has emerged. Therefore, musicians need to become entrepreneurial to secure a living. Benjamin Toscher, a Ph.D. candidate at Engage, has focused his research on how music students in higher education learn entrepreneurship.

    Findings of the research

    Toscher finished his doctoral dissertation on the 26th of February. His field of research is entrepreneurship education in higher music education (HME), and his findings can be summarized in three points:

    1. The first finding is that most music students value entrepreneurship and that they recognize it as being important for their future careers as musicians. They recognize that they will need to create their own jobs and to realize and create their own opportunities – that is, if they want to make a living out of their passion.
    2. The second finding is about their education and non-musical skills, such as entrepreneurial skills. Toscher found that many students felt that there is a big gap between how important they think non-musical skills are and the level of which they acquire these skills.
    3. The third and last finding is about how students explore and try new things in entrepreneurship education. Toscher says that the students balance two types of factors: personal factors (such as their own beliefs and learning styles) and social factors (such as the actual classroom environment that the educators set up and how they work in teams). He found that they balance these two types of factors to reduce uncertainty, to take actions to reduce uncertainty in entrepreneurial projects.

    Dealing with uncertainty and risk

    Musicians are one of the working groups that have been hit the hardest during the Covid-19 pandemic. In Norway, the estimate is that musicians earn between 35% to 50% of their income from live performances and concerts. When they no longer have the opportunity to do so, they risk losing their income base.

    “If it wasn’t clear enough that musicians have to be entre-preneurial out of necessity before, the pandemic made it really clear. In the early stages of the pandemic a lot of musicians started streaming concerts, and there was a lot of response to that. That is a great example of an innovative and entrepreneurial response.”

    Benjamin Toscher, Ph.D candidate at Engage

    However, Toscher believes that the concept of streaming concerts may fade away as people are no longer equally interested. This implies that musicians once again have to think entrepreneurially. The pandemic has shown us why entrepreneurship education in higher music education is important and relevant.

    Toscher’s publications

  • Students becoming change agents

    Students becoming change agents

    We hosted an Experts in Teamwork village where students got to develop real life solutions with real impact – becoming change agents. 

    By Tina Larsen

    Engage’s overall ambition is for students to become change agents for the better. There are numerous sustainability related challenges affecting people, the environment and society across the world. In order to act on these challenges, we must identify and understand them, develop solutions, put together the necessary resources, deal with uncertainty and risk, and not the least – act. A person who takes this responsibility is a “change agent”.

    Become a change agent!

    For three weeks this January students from all kinds of disciplines attended the Experts in Teamwork village called “Become a change agent!”. Experts in Teamwork (EiT) is a master’s degree course in which students develop their interdisciplinary teamwork skills. The students work in groups on a project related to a common theme, which unites the different projects in each village. The course is compulsory for all students in master’s programmes and programmes of professional study at NTNU.

    The Engage village was managed in collaboration with NTNU’s School of Entrepreneurship at the Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management (IØT). The students got access to the tools, concepts and perspectives developed by students and the academic staff here. The village is supported by a project funded by the Norwegian Research Council called Network for Engaged Entrepreneurship in Developing Economies (NEED) under the INTPART funding stream. The students got access to the knowledge of and context specific guidance from the Indian partners in this network.

    Real life solutions and real impact

    In the village, the students got to work together with rural Indian innovators and entrepreneurs to develop real life solutions with real life impact and learn about sustainable innovation and entrepreneurial methods. Due to the ongoing pandemic, the course were held on digital platforms. SRISTI (Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions), a partner in the NEED project, was instrumental in identifying relevant projects for the students, enabling and facilitating interactions between the student groups and rural innovators. SRISTI works with rural innovators and entrepreneurs to systematically document, disseminate, and add value to their innovations and bring these to a wider audience and markets. 

    The 29 students in the village worked on five different products this year that have been developed by innovators in rural India. These include:

    • A low-cost walking aid with adjustable legs that enables the differently abled to walk and climb stairs
    • Adaptive clothing for the differently abled that offers greater independence and choice in clothing for people with limited mobility in their limbs
    • A cow dung plant pot and pot making machine that is an environmentally friendly alternative to plastic pots for plants
    • A multi-purpose food processing machine that enables farmers a low cost option for value addition to agricultural produce
    • A modified 3 wheeler vehicle offering wheelchair users independent long distance mobility

    The students worked with the innovators and SRISTI staff to bring these products to a wider market. The students used the interdisciplinary skills in their teams to develop a range of solutions from market analyses, to business and financial plans, marketing plans as well as design on website and promotional materials. These have been shared with the innovators.

    “It was motivating to do something that has real and valuable impact in a real situation. Although we worked on entrepreneurial projects in rural India, I learned the entrepreneurial way of thinking which can be used in all kinds of contexts. I now have the tools and experience to solve problems in a more efficient way.

    Student attending the village
    One of the student groups made a brochure for the company they worked with

    A good team is a key to entrepreneurial success

    The overall goal in Experts in Teamwork is to utilize the interdisciplinary competence in the group to solve the project. At the same time, during the work, the students take a meta-perspective on how the actual collaboration on the project works. In that way, they become aware of what they are doing in the group that works well or poorly. After reflecting on this, they can implement concrete measures to improve cooperation.

    “We learned from each other – not only from our professional background but also how to work better as a team, how to communicate more efficiently, how to correspond to each other, how to give feedback and how to be more open. During the process we used these attributes and improved them to become a better team. “

    Student attending the village

    At Engage, we believe having a good team is one of the key elements to entrepreneurial success. During these three weeks, the students got to identify and understand the challenges, develop solutions, put together the necessary resources, deal with uncertainty and risk, and act. They have successfully learned how to become a change agent.

  • Engage Participating in New Sustainable Circular Economy Project

    Engage Participating in New Sustainable Circular Economy Project

    The project “CATALY(C)ST: Youth Change Makers as Catalysts for a transition to a Sustainable Circular Economy” involves partners from five Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland) and it is co-funded by the Nordic Innovation. The project aims to bring best practices from the research world, the maker communities, the youth movements and industry into one strong initiative. This will allow unusual partners to join in on one uniform agenda to speed up development of Nordic sustainable CE impact projects.


    The project will apply the collective experience, competencies, research, company & talent network from excellent research and entrepreneurship institutions from five Nordic countries; Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Aalto University Design Factory in Finland and EFLA Consulting Engineers in Iceland. To speed up the transition to a Sustainable Circular Economy, the CATALY(C)ST project brings together four main elements:  

    1. Accelerating Nordic companies’ transition to a sustainable circular economy by engaging students, manufacturing companies to speed up their CE transition by a collaborative approach for CE development projects by activating resources from; a talent-mass of students, world-class researchers and mentor experts, Nordic innovation hubs and organizations. 
    2. Impactful minds of tomorrow for circular economy champions and innovations: Competency and experience building of the youth and the industry champions within existing companies to become change makers. 
    3. Mobilizing a Nordic change community for CE: Alignment within already existing communities to establish a new Nordic youth community.
    4. Industry & research – partnership-based program: Bringing expert knowledge to companies’ CE-development projects.  

    With this overall ambition, the project will form 25 industry partnerships, wherein 30 development projects will accelerate companies to transition to a sustainable CE-based business. The project will engage 200-300 students, 50 industry representatives in a series of co-creation activities. CE-capacity building initiatives will involve 100-200 companies and 400-500 students.

    Project partners
    DTU Skylab (coordinator), Denmark 
    DTU Mechanical Engineering, Denmark
    KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
    Aalto University Design Factory, Finland
    Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)/ Engage – Centre for Engaged Education through Entrepreneurship, Norway 
    EFLA, Iceland
    Learn more about the project

  • VCP Forum goes digital

    VCP Forum goes digital

    By Sofie Holtan Lakså

    Venture creation programs, VCPs, are educational programs where students have to start their own businesses.

    The past year Engage has continued the efforts by Martin Lackéus of putting together a list of universities offering such venture creation programs.

    We have gathered data from over 200 entrepreneurship education programs, identifying around 40 VCPs or VCP-like programs globally. We believe that these programs share many of the same challenges. Therefore we are arranging the digital VCP-forum where we can share ideas, tips, and better practices. The content of the forum includes relevant discussions for both practitioners and researchers.  

    Program digital mini-seminar 2021
    When: 14-17 CET, 18 March 2021
    14:00– 14:40
    Welcome and introduction to the forum and the participants
    14:40– 15:30
    How has the formal and informal learning community changed during the pandemic?
    Lotfi Belkhir, McMaster University
    Thomas Blekman, Global School for Entrepreneurship
    Tuva Okkenhaug and Kaja Solheim, students from NTNU School of Entrepreneurship
    15:30–15:45
    Break
    15:45– 16:30
    Research presentations and discussion
    Manjula Dissanayake, University of Adelaide
    Gustav Hägg, Lund University and Malmö University
    Mats Lundqvist, Chalmers School of Entrepreneurship
    16:30–17:00
    Discussion and Q&A, wrap-up

    The main vessel for learning

    Even Haug Larsen is the project manager for VCP Forum and Assistant Professor at the Venture Creation Program at the NTNU School of Entrepreneurship (NSE). At NSE, all students start their own businesses. 

    We believe that starting a venture is the best way to learn entrepreneurship. The venture is their main vessel for learning

    Even Haug Larsen

    Engage has received research funding from The Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research to research which other universities that also offer VCPs. Larsen explains that they are especially interested in the degree to which the students who attend the program intend to start a real company, and to what extent their faculty has the intention for the students to start a real company.

    We hope that by sharing and developing best, and better, practice within entrepreneurship education, we can meet, learn from each other, and continue to evolve

    Even Haug Larsen

    Digital mini-seminar 2021

    The fourth VCP-forum was planned to be arranged over two full days in Buckingham, England, in 2020. But due to the pandemic situation we had to postpone. We are therefore arranging a shorter digital forum on the 18th of March.  

    The program includes:

    • Presentation of different VCP designs
    • Updated research on the field of VCP
    • Breakup rooms with research and pedagogy discussions related to VCP
    • Networking with other VCPs
    • Research collaborations possibilities 
  • The importance of innovation in healthcare

    The importance of innovation in healthcare

    How can we equip nursing students with the right tools to engage with innovation in healthcare? Engage recently hosted a seminar with this specific aim.

    By Marcus Stensland and Karoline Lund Johansen

    Nurses have helped people get well since the mid-19th century. Yet, the old profession is one of the most essential components in today’s society. Throughout the years’ of medical advances, nursing has changed and adapted through time. We find ourselves wondering how innovation can push development further into the future? On January 21st, Engage hosted the seminar “Change agents in healthcare” (Endringsagenter i helsesektoren), which aims to better equip nursing students with the right tools to engage in innovation.

    Innovation in the health sector can be everything from improving systems used for nurses and doctors, new services for patients, as well as new products to support or make the job easier. Benedikte Dyrhaug Stoknes gives us an insight into how they work with this topic at the Surgical clinic Division at Nordland Hospital Trust, where she works with quality and patient safety.

    “I have a strong passion for quality improvement. The small thing in everyday life that in a way helps make things a little better.”

    Benedikte Dyrhaug Stoknes

    She explains how she got to be a part of changing the system for how to register and respond to changes in a patient’s symptoms. This improvement helped nurses get an objective understanding of deteriorating patients and when doctors needed to be paged.

    Innovation in the health sector always has the end goal to improve people’s lives and health. However, Stoknes admits innovation is not often associated with her field of work.

    Nurse and Phd student, Gunn-Berit Neergård, talks about the importance of innovation in the health sector

    The challenges of innovation

    Cecilie Haukland, a former nurse and economist, is under the impression that innovation needs more attention in the health sector, and especially among nurses. She says that a lot of people, including nurses, are not even aware of the opportunity to do innovation at their workplace.

    Haukland herself has experienced the difficulties of doing innovation as a nurse. When starting her nursing job as a freshly graduated 21-year old, she found it difficult to propose new ideas and tell more experienced staff that she had ideas or suggestions for new ways to do the job.

    “The problem with nursing, and the health sector in general, is that a lot of people will experience resistance upon proposing changes to problem-solving and new ideas. This is mainly caused by very confusing and difficult processes needed to innovate in the sector. These processes need to be simplified to include more bright minds.”

    Cecilie Haukland

    Haukland is not alone in believing this is a problem. Stoknes also points to the environment and culture as the main bottleneck for innovation. She explains that this is not a problem everyone in the health sector faces, but this is a problem with varying impact in the different departments. In some places there is no doubt that one experiences a different atmosphere than others. With that said she also points out that over the years they have become more aware of the connection between workplace environment and patient safety.

    Stoknes believes that to create a good culture where ideas will have the opportunity to grow, they need good leaders that can create an environment where curiosity is valued, and who can see the potential in ideas that are suggested, and help guide them through the process of making them a reality.

    “One person alone can not change the world”.

    Benedikte Dyrhaug Stoknes

    Bringing innovation into nurses’ education

    In 2020 the health sector’s ability to change and innovate has been put to a test, as covid-19 spreads through the world population. With this reality as a backdrop, third-year students at Nord University’s nursing school were involved in the annual innovation seminar. The event addresses what it is to be a change agent, and gives the students the tools they need to work with innovation. They are encouraged to build on their own experience and problem-solve through the design thinking methodology.

    Both Haukland and Stoknes participated as facilitators at the event that aims to better equip nursing students with the right tools to engage in innovation. The seminar mainly revolved around spreading awareness regarding the issues of innovation within the health sector, and group sessions focused on practical problem-solving. Student Wiona Adelin Rostad attended the seminar and found the process of innovation exciting.

    “Working in groups with complex problem solving, was something I’ve never experienced before. Finding a solution that’s not written down in a textbook or an article made us think outside the box. The seminar was interesting and very motivating. I believe that it will help nursing students with finding innovative solutions to problems when they enter the real world of nursing”.

    Wiona Adelin Rostad

    Rostad was one of over 60 students who attended the seminar, and she believes the initiative is important to fuel the innovation fire that lies within newly graduated students.

    Event breakdown

    • An introduction to innovation and entrepreneurship in practice by Jeanett Grønnslett (Anue), Benedikte Dyrhaug Stoknes (Nordlandssykehuset) and Gunn-Berit Neergård from NTNU
    • Crash course in Design Thinking by Sølvi Solvoll (Associate Professor, Nord University)
    • Group Work with focus on problem awareness and solving
    • Groups pitch solution/idea in front of an expert panel
    • Expert panel evaluates ideas and awards prize to winner team