"In a world of more and more dynamic and complexity, creativity is THE key competence to steer and implement economic and social processes. The project ARTISTS’ GLASSES wants to give access to the potential of artists for other professional groups so that they can experience and use it. Typical artistic competences are the handling of open, unsecure and non-projectable situations and the creative use of cooperations. These competences can be shown, taught and trained.The ARTISTS’ GLASSES 2 build on the knowledge and results of the previous project of Erasmus+ (09/2014 - 02/2017), which examined and described attitudes of artistic thinking and working over all artistic sections. The new project involves artists in the teaching process. In various platforms they could show their artistic attitudes so that others were able to perceive them. Furthermore, artists could offer fields to experience artistic processes, cooperation and reflection to other professional groups. With speeches and discussions with artists of all sections, participants learned how artists approach a topic, how they create ideas and find solutions, how they overcome crisis, how they use their creative potential. Based on the transfer of artistic forms of expression and problem solving patterns into the cosmos of experience of other people, the project contributed to acquire creative competences that are related to practice. The target groups were people in vocational education or in further trainings such as teachers of colleges and schools, students and apprentices. Furthermore people working in the economy such as managers, vocational trainers, staff developers and employees as well as people who wanted to train their personality related to creativity.Due to the high workload involved Erasmus+ highly recommended to spit the project in two smaller projects and therefore to shorten it from three to two years. Therefore, the project changed some focuses and topics.The first format would have been a walk-in learning platform where artists would have been involved. This format was not realized in this project but foreseen for the next project. Therefore, Schloss Tirol as our fourth partner was not involved in this project. In order to realize the next project it was necessary to look for suitable places in different countries during this project period. The reason for the early contacts was the long lead times because institutions have booked their rooms already years in advance. Finally four educational and artistic institutions could have been engaged in order to realize the following project ARTISTS' GLASSES 3, in time.The next format consisted of arts-based Mini-Think Tanks. Students of the Master program „Nonprofit-Management und Public Governance"" at the University of Applied Sciences (HTW) Berlin, employees of nonprofit organizations and artists work trans-disciplinarily on an entrepreneurial problem of the involved organizations over a few weeks. Arts-based inputs and exercises were given to acquaint the participants with artistic attitudes that can be tested in practical cases. The goal was to find new solutions out of unexpected perspectives. The cooperation with artists offered to experience, imitate and train their attitudes as well as to reflect the transferability to concrete working situations. The conceptual basis, the working process, the developed solutions as well as the learnings was documented. The third format encompassed two training courses for managers in order for them to develop and train arts-based competence. In nine relevant modules, they engulfed themselves in artistic thinking and working attitudes. The practical part and self-experience in artistic hands-on mini-processes, the exchanges with artists as well as the transferability to their professional environments were essential. The courses were held in the Bildungshaus Schloss Goldrain in South Tyrol, Italy. Both courses, one with six and the other one with nine modules, were evaluated. Two evaluators examined the goals, process and learnings/benefit together with the participants, the teacher and director of Schloss Goldrain in each course. The conceptual basis, the procedure, the outputs and the learnings of the two training courses is documented. Due to the shortage, the foreseen online digital information platform was not realized.The following partners are involved: The project leader and owner of Kubus Kulturvermittlung from Liechtenstein is the initiator of the ARTISTS’ GLASSES leading managers, employees and apprentices through arts-based processes. The project partner at the University of Applied Sciences (HTW) Berlin researches theoretically and empirically the interfaces of economy and the arts. The director of the adult education institute Schloss Goldrain in South Tyrol / Italy, brings wide experience in adult education and in vocational training courses."

"The „Artists’ Glasses“ examines and shows what professionals out of education/economy/society can learn from artists and their view and way of working.Professionals are permanently facing new challenges in their daily work. They need creativity and courage because old patterns of thinking cease to exist and new solutions are required. The “Artists’ Glasses” breaks up set thinking/acting and opens new perspectives. Visual and performing artists, composers, conductors and musicians as well as writers incorporate artistic attitudes and creative abilities, which can be adapted and transferred to other professional and social fields. Artists think differently, in new or diagonal dimensions, quite often the opposite. They develop seismographic sensors, discover, try out, discard, reconstruct in new contexts, welcome detours, stand irritations and uncertainties. They are well trained to navigate in systems with little structure, which helps to orientate in new and unknown situations.These examples describe the attitude and approach of artistic working processes. What is of interest is how artists handle the scope, come into a creative flow, analyze reality and expand their imagination. The behavior of artists should be adapted and transferred to other professional fields.The “Artists’ Glasses” is settled in the area of leadership and staff development. It is about leadership competences, initiating and coaching of changing processes, self-organization, personal resources and leadership tools, e.g. problem solving techniques. In comparison to classic methods the “Artists’ Glasses” pursuits something new and innovative. Basically it is not intended to show instruments and techniques, but to sustainably build up attitudes that form the base for individual and group related ways of behavior. Therefore, the “Artists’ Glasses” exceeds artistic interventions or arts-based trainings which are increasingly applied to organizational and staff development.The project follows a transdisciplinary approach. Based on challenges which professionals face in their daily work the “Artists’ Glasses” looks for a problem solving mix of methods coming from the arts and culture, business economics, psychology, organizational sociology and philosophy. Based on a qualitative and empiric study as well as on a theoretical reflection of the results practical recommendations will be developed, adapted and transferred in various business working situations which will be implemented as trials in companies. This procedure will be the basis for rollout examples. In a first step, students of the HTW Berlin (“University of Applied Sciences”) will analyze interviews of experts – artists as well as professionals. For the success of the project it is essential to involve Bachelor and Master students to have a profound look through the “Artists’ Glasses”. It is out of question that this approach must be part of the vocational training of future managers and staff. Furthermore, the students show a fresh view on practical working situations of professionals.The Büro für Zukunftsfragen (“Office for Future-Related Issues”) is part of the administration of Vorarlberg/Austria and works on a sustainable development; local, regional and international. They involve social fields as regional administration, tourism, education, municipality, health sector, associations and initiatives. Regarding the “Artists’ Glasses” they offer the possibility to test artistic attitudes in various platforms. Kubus Kulturvermittlung in Liechtenstein initiates and develops the “Artists’ Glasses” and leads companies and educational/vocational institutions through artistic processes. It is the goal to perceive and deepen entrepreneurial topics as values, core purposes or leadership principles in a different manner. Kubus Kulturvermittlung courageously uses uncommon methods and shows creativity and enthusiasm when it comes to artistic attitudes. Professionals out of education/economy/society experiences are valuable feedbacks to fine-tune the concept of the “Artists’ Glasses”. The book ""The Artists' Glasses - What and How Managers Can Learn from Artists"" is based on experience and knowledge of all activities in this project. It consists of a theoretical part of 29 artistic attitudes which are shown with quotes of artists about their way of thinking and working. These attitudes are connected with practical exercise, questions, instructions, studies, problem cases which inspires the readers and lead them to action. The book will fill a gap in management literature. Important to mention is that artistic attitudes cannot be learned theoretically but only through own experience. However, in order to think in an artistic mindset, the user must not become artist. It is only about the “Artists’ Glasses”.Professionals out of education/economy/society using the ""Artists Glasses"" are perfectly prepared and equipped for the challenges of the 21st century."

The current economic system is socially and environmentally unsustainable. In the past decades, more and more voices have been raised to express the necessity of rethinking the way we, as citizens, organisations and policymakers, interact, consume, create and live. To do so, we have to develop alternatives for the current system that are less resource-intensive, generate less inequalities, and, to put it simply, are sustainable for both people and the planet. Circular economic models offer this opportunity. One issue is that these models are not sufficiently taught to students, both in higher education and secondary schools.The “Rethinking pedagogical approaches and digital tools to teach circular economy” project aims at creating open source tools that help to teach and learn about circular economic models. The project gathers three partners: Université Libre de Bruxelles, the second largest French-speaking university in Belgium and the leading institution on this project, Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin, Berlin's largest university of applied sciences, and the Stars Are Circular foundation, whose mission is to facilitate the learning of circular economic models by children.This project will result in the development of four complementary digital tools that will together constitute a ready-to-be-implemented module that could fit in higher education courses related to circular economy, social entrepreneurship or sustainable development. However, the tools can also be used separately, in the frame of a course or not. The first tool will consist of videos that retrace the path of several social entrepreneurs. These videos will confront the students with real-life situations of social entrepreneurs, and will explain their motivations as well as the obstacles faced. The videos can be used as a case study, either as an exercise or as the basis for a class discussion. The second tool will also take the form of videos, but will this time more theoretical ones. These content videos will present in a playful way the different alternative economic models that are sometimes regrouped under the term “circular economy”. These videos will be accompanied by pedagogical content to facilitate their implementation in courses. The third tool will consist of an online game allowing the students to take part in a serious game which includes elements of role play, simulations and framed economic experiments, focusing on circular economy. The participants will have the opportunity of representing an economic agent (government, entrepreneur, citizen, NGO, etc.) and will be able to experience the causal links of their acts. The fourth tool is a circular toolkit platform where higher education students will have the responsibility of teaching a part of the acquired knowledge to secondary school students. The higher education will be put into relation with one or a group of students from secondary school and will have to transmit the knowledge they will have acquired from the previous tools.These four tools are highly complementary and rely on different innovative pedagogical concepts.During the first year of the project, the target group will consist of a minimum of 500 students distributed between ULB, HTW Berlin,and associated professors in UMons, UNamur In Belgium and in Utrecht in the Netherlands. Then, we will expand the use of the tools to other higher education institutions in the partner’s countries and abroad, but also internally (to other faculties of HTW Berlin and ULB). We aim at implementing the tools in at least 10 more higher education institutions, reaching 2.500 students. The expected impacts of the project have different time perspectives.In the short term, the objective is to provide teachers with useful digital tools to increase student interest in circular economic models.In the medium term, the expected impact is to increase the number of social enterprises and enterprises with a circular business model and to influence policymakers towards a more circular view of economics.In the long run, the objective of this project is to transform the European economy to make it circular and therefore ensure a better and safer future for both the planet and the ones living on it.

European Master in Dynamics of Renewables-based Power Systems (DREAM) is a 2-year Master programme that offers multidisciplinary education in the modern power systems field.It trains students to tackle in a new way the actual and future challenges of smart power systems. Therefore, kernel knowledge from the fields of Power Systems, Smart Grids, Renewable Generation, Automatic Control and Power Electronics is combined to give to the students the opportunity to acquire a global “system view” of the dynamics of next generation of power systems.DREAM is a joint master programme implemented and fully supported by 4 major European Higher Education Institutions (HEI): Ecole Centrale Nantes, France (Coordinator), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain, Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft, Germany and Universitatea Politehnica din Bucuresti, Romania.Main DREAM aims are:-To promote a more integrated way of thinking which is the system view in order to form multidisciplinary specialists trained for the new jobs and challenges of future power systems-To respond to the European Commission expectations and objectives in increasing the share of renewable generation and reach the energy and climate targetsDREAM students will spend their first semester in France to acquire background in Power Systems and Automatic Control and will move for the second semester to Germany, Spain or Romania. Third semester can be done in any of the partners HEI, by choosing one of the following specialties:-Smart grids dynamics and control - transmission/distribution/microgrids (France)-Advanced wind turbine control, protection systems (Germany)-Power electronics in power systems (Spain)-Smart power systems (Romania)The mobility scheme will thus consist in visiting 2 or 3 EU countries in the first 3 semesters. Semester 4 is devoted to the Master’s Thesis. The students will then receive double or triple degrees from the institution they studied in.

"Context: INTENSE – INTernational ENtrepreneurship Skills Europe is a transnational project of five European Higher Education Institutions (HEI). INTENSE responds to the needs for internationalisation of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SME), the needs of students to gain international, entrepreneurial, and innovation competences and HEIs’ needs to stimulate these competencies by creating a holistic and joint teaching approach. The project was funded by the EU programme Erasmus+ from September 2016 to September 2019.Objectives: INTENSE promotes the internationalisation, entrepreneurial, and innovation skills of students, HEI staff, and European SMEs and established a network between these stakeholders. It established an innovative and complex teaching module, which stimulates entrepreneurial behaviour and the internationalisation of students, HEI staff, and SMEs. This contributes to the employability of students and HEI staff.Participating organisations:INTENSE was implemented by five HEIs (Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin (HTW), Germany; Hogeschool Utrecht, the Netherlands; University Colleges Leuven-Limburg, Belgium; Turku University of Applied Sciences, Finland; J. Strossmayer University of Osijek, Croatia). The consortium is a mix of universities and universities of applied sciences with different backgrounds. All partners set up national steering structures with students, SMEs, and other relevant stakeholders. During the project, five additional HEIs joined the team and started to implement the INTENSE teaching approach.Main activities:INTENSE developed an interactive and transnational teaching module on SME internationalisation. This 15 ECTS teaching module includes material on international entrepreneurship, SME internationalisation, project management, and practical skills; additional teaching material of 5 ECTS was also created.Several rounds of the transnational student consultancy project, in which student teams act as real entrepreneurs supporting the SMEs’ internationalisation, were conducted. Student teams do not just consult their local SME, but also cooperate with student teams in the target market of the SME and gain insight into several SME projects while broadening their international competences and network.Furthermore, a toolkit was developed prioritising the entrepreneur’s perspective to support its quest to internationalise. INTENSE also re-developed and tested an instrument to measure innovation competences among students, entrepreneurs, and HEI staff members, and developed policy recommendations.Results and impact:More than 950 students benefitted from the INTENSE teaching material and were trained in analysing the internationalisation potential of SMEs in the last 1,5 years of the project. 290 students worked on real-life SME cases and developed individual situation analyses for the SMEs during transnational student consultancy projects. These students cooperated transnationally to solve their SMEs’ challenge and presented their work at multiplier events to potential future employers. Several students per country were offered a job from participating SMEs.The INTENSE teaching material is openly available on the INTENSE platform. Staff from participating HEIs were trained in this new learning module and in the innovation measurement instrument, in total 44 HEI staff benefited from international experiences during the project. A teaching manual plus a module description ensures the transferability of the project outputs to additional HEIs. Awareness for this module was raised by international multiplier events and by publications in relevant journals.Besides the tailor-made support that 49 SMEs received during the transnational student consultancy, INTENSE gathered relevant information on internationalisation on the SME toolkit, openly available to all SMEs. INTENSE lessons learned and recommendations on how to stimulate the internationalisation of SMEs, modernisation of HEIs, and employability of students was elaborated in a public conference with relevant stakeholders.Longer-term benefits:INTENSE contributes to the reforms of the 2011 EU Modernisation Agenda. It improves the quality and relevance of teaching & learning (KP2) of the participating and further joining HEIs. The fact that five additional HEIs already implemented the teaching approach emphasizes the quality and relevance of the teaching approach. Due to the design of the transnational student consultancy, INTENSE promotes the mobility of students & staff (KP3), extending beyond the funding period, and strengthens the “knowledge triangle"" of education, research, and innovation (KP4) through the close cooperation in the steering group.INTENSE supports the implementation of the 2013 Communication on Opening Up Education, as all teaching material is openly available.INTENSE increases the employability of students and HEI staff, through the acquired entrepreneurial and transversal competences."