The Universidad Europea del Atlántico (European University of the Atlantic, UNEATLANTICO) will organize, on March 26th at 5:00 pm (Spain), the webinar in Spanish "Digital, Sustainable, and Profitable Entrepreneurship: Educating through the Start-DSP Project" which will be given by Dr. Emmanuel Soriano.
The event is held in collaboration with the Universidad Europea del Atlántico (European University of the Atlantic, UNEATLANTICO), the Universidad Internacional Iberoamericana de Puerto Rico (International Iberoamerican University, UNIB), the Universidad Internacional Iberoamericana de México (International Iberoamerican University of Mexico, UNINI Mexico), the Fundación Universitaria Internacional de Colombia (International University Foundation of Colombia, UNINCOL), the Universidade Internacional do Cuanza (International University of Cuanza, UNIC), and the Universidad de La Romana (University of La Romana, UNIROMANA).
Emmanuel Soriano holds a PhD in Science in Higher Education and a Master's degree in International Business Administration. He has experience as a professor and researcher in several universities in Mexico and Spain.
In this webinar, Dr. Soriano will explain his participation in the Erasmus+ Start-DSP project (2023-2026), which aims to promote proper entrepreneurship education in higher education institutions, in order to achieve digital, sustainable and profitable entrepreneurship. "There is a need for more tools and platforms like Start-DSP that help professors and entrepreneurs to better guide entrepreneurship projects and delimit them according to European regulations" stressed Soriano, on the importance of having this type of initiatives in today's entrepreneurship education.
The project, led by the Accreditation Council for Entrepreneurial and Engaged Universities (ACEEU) of Germany, involves the following European institutions: the European University of the Atlantic (UNEATLANTICO) of Spain, Momentum Services of Ireland, the European E-Learning Institute (EUEI) of Denmark, Metropolitan College of Greece and the German consulting firm The Vision Works.
The conference is free and open to all those interested in the subject and will be streamed live on this YouTube channel. The broadcasting schedules can be consulted in this link. To participate, registration is required:
Registration closes 24 hours prior to the webinar.
Meaningful CSR is not based on patronage or mentorship, it is based on partnership. Partnership with communities, and partnership with the organisations that support and represent them. And, fortunately, we are seeing more and more of these partnerships.
Ireland’s community, voluntary and charity sector is a wellspring of knowledge and expertise. Around 184,000 people are employed in the sector and it generates a combined annual turnover of €14.5bn. These organisations are embedded in communities, and they have decades of experience in addressing some of the most complex issues we face as a society.
To maximise their positive impact on society, companies must develop partnerships with community and voluntary organisations focused on sustained impact over time. These holistic strategies should be informed, not only by a company’s values, but also the evolving needs of communities. Many local and international companies have stepped up as good corporate citizens by working closely with civil society organisations to ensure that their contributions have a positive impact where it is most needed.
In the long-term, these strategies will create shared value for both companies and society, but in the current circumstances, social need must be prioritised, and companies should be content to give more than they get. In future, these impact-focused CSR programmes will stand in stark contrast to those that are focused solely on creating value for brands and their shareholders.
Corporate Social Responsibility Partnerships
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) partnerships between businesses and not-for-profit organisations like RoSPA, are often considered to be one of the most effective ways of creating positive social change. Delivering a positive impact for people by creating a programme of activity that creates a safe environment and a workforce fit for the future is a hugely valuable goal and has benefits for your customers, employees, consumers and partners alike:
Customers
B2B customers want responsible and values driven suppliers
Employees
Prefer to work at an organisation that is purpose and values led
Consumers
Want to purchase from organisations with clearly articulated values
Partners
Want to work with an organisation that has a clear and compelling story aligned to their values
Reasons to build partnerships with social purpose
Accidents can change lives. Thousands of people were seriously injured or killed in accidents at home, on the road or at work – many of them preventable.
CSR strategies can be achieved for SMEs by creating CSR activities that are designed to raise awareness, educate, and empower those most at risk of accidents to live safer, active lives. CSR programmes benefit society while boosting your brand and improving your bottom line. There are many potential benefits to your organisation creating a CSR partnership with RoSPA, these include:
A CSR partnership can help your organisation enact positive social change. If you want to make a difference to society through a programme of CSR activity, there are other benefits too:
Your organisation
Having a reputation as a responsible company can lead to competitive advantage
Employees
Being a responsible business makes it easier to recruit and retain employees
Local community
Benefiting from your activities, your local community will be more supportive
Having a strong CSR programme, may mean that you also find it easier to:
Gain positive media coverage
Attract new investors
Develop new products or services
How A CSR Partnership can Deliver CSR goals
The aim of our CSR partnerships is to build a strategy around your CSR goals based on your core competencies, and our areas of expertise which include:
Take a simple three step approach:
Step 1 - Discovery
Explore and understand your CSR goals
Step 2 - Assessment
Identify opportunities and prioritise options
Step 3 - Specific Support
Develop a programme of activity to
achieve your goals
Aligning objectives and setting goals is vital, as is ongoing evaluation of your CSR project to ensure both parties are meeting these goals. Learning from any challenges along the way leads to a better understanding of what makes your partnership successful and how we can create the most sustainable change.
An Example of a CSR Partnership
In 2019, a long-term strategic partnership developed in support of RSA’s CSR strategy ‘Confident Futures’, which focuses on ‘Shaping a smarter tomorrow’. Through this partnership, we’ve supported RSA activities which help people and businesses to get ahead of risks through education, awareness-raising and encouraging behaviour change. It’s about helping people better understand the risks they face so that they can adjust their behaviour to mitigate them.
OpenApp has been awarded the Excellence in CSR by an SME in the Chambers Ireland Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Awards 2018.
OpenApp won for their project Rare100. Rare diseases affect an estimated 300 million people around the world and 30 million in Europe alone. Despite this, there is no cure for the majority of rare diseases and many go undiagnosed. Rare100 provides a free web-enabled patient registry for patient organisations supporting an ultra-rare condition. This enables organisations to gather data which will improve the lives of people suffering with rare diseases.
OpenApp’s CSR programme demonstrated company-wide engagement and impressed the judging panel by performing consistently well across all aspects of CSR. OpenApp was presented with a specially commissioned trophy designed by Waterford Crystal.
Speaking at the Awards ceremony was Sara Viegas, Product Manager, OpenApp
“We are delighted to win this award. Rare100, is a feature rich, free web-enabled patient registry for patient organisations with a population of less than 100 patients.
We have a number of patient organisations who are benefiting from Rare100 including ultra rare diseases such as Tay Sachs and MSD. The CATS foundation which is the patient organisation behind Tay Sachs in the UK is close to getting a clinical trial underway, because of their patient registry. This is great news for a disease that has no known cure or treatment. We are humbled to receive this award on behalf of the company and the organisations we work with.”
Ian Talbot, Chief Executive of Chambers Ireland said at the Awards ceremony,
“Ireland today is a wellspring of vital and inventive CSR practices across the business spectrum and the annual CSR Awards are the perfect opportunity to celebrate and pay tribute to the most exciting projects happening today. Over the past fifteen years of the awards, the bar continues to be raised in terms of the level of ingenuity behind each applicant’s projects as well as the depth of engagement with sustainable and socially responsible goals.
Congratulations to OpenApp and the winners of the fourteen excellence in CSR award categories, whom we recognise for their achievements in best practice CSR.”
Founded in 2002, we are a healthcare IT company that has grown to nearly 50 employees, are blazing a trail to support the rare disease communities. Learn more about our work here.
The partners of the Erasmus+ Start Digital - Sustainable - Profitable (Start-DSP) project recently held a virtual meeting to discuss the progress and next steps in the project.
The meeting was organized by the Accreditation Council for Entrepreneurial and Engaged Universities (ACEEU) of Germany. Other partners were also present: the European University of the Atlantic (UNEATLANTICO), Momentum Services from Ireland, European E-Learning Institute (EUEI) from Denmark, Metropolitan College from Greece and the German consulting firm The Vision Works.
During the meeting, the partners shared progress on the interviews conducted with educators and entrepreneurs and briefly discussed some of the results. Among them, the variety of perspectives of the people interviewed was highlighted. Furthermore, it was remarked that the relevance of integrating green practices does not only depend on the target groups, but also on their professional experiences or background, their awareness of the concept of digitalization and sustainability, and the type of company, in the case of entrepreneurs.
After the phase of analysis of the results and discussion with the partners, the next task that the partners will focus on is the toolkit, developed by ACEEU, which is practice-oriented and designed to sustainably increase the commitment and professionalism of entrepreneurial education in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The aim of this toolkit is to take into account different levels of maturity and professionalism and to improve the quality and impact of environmental education in European HEIs in general.
The partners established a schedule to move forward with next actions. The next meeting will be held virtually on July 12.
People interested in the Start-DSP project can learn more about it through its website, X, and LinkedIn.
The project, funded by the Nationale Agentur für Erasmus+ Hochschulzusammenarbeit (NA-DAAD), started in October last year and will end in October 2026.
The Start Digital - Sustainable - Profitable (Start-DSP) project partners held their kick-off meeting in Münster (Germany) at the end of October 2023.
The project, led by the Accreditation Council for Entrepreneurial and Engaged Universities (ACEEU) of Germany, involves the following European institutions: Universidad Europea del Atlántico (UNEATLANTICO), Momentum Services of Ireland, European E-Learning Institute (EUEI) of Denmark, Metropolitan College of Greece and the German consulting firm, The Vision Works.
The project, funded by the Nationale Agentur für Erasmus+ Hochschulzusammenarbeit (NA-DAAD), started last month and will end in October 2026.
Across Europe, the potential impact of entrepreneurship education in higher education institutions, concerning socially and environmentally sustainable economic growth and digital business models, is not sufficiently exploited.
The lack of financial and human resources, the difficulties to adapt the teaching offer due to the high dynamics and complexity of the subject, and the constant change in learning needs make it difficult, on many occasions, to undertake this project, in addition to being increasingly common requirements in the European business framework.
This initiative will be aimed especially at higher education professors, as well as Vocational Training teachers and students, all of them belonging to the field of entrepreneurship.
The project will produce the following tangible results. The first work package will take the form of a practice-oriented teaching toolkit designed to sustainably increase the engagement and professionalism of entrepreneurship education in higher education institutions.
In addition, the second work package will produce different results. On the one hand, a competency framework will be developed, considering the competencies established by the European Commission on digitalization, sustainability, and entrepreneurship. This framework will be implemented in a study program. Subsequently, the study program will be incorporated into a set of ready-to-use educational resources.
Finally, in the last work package of the project, a technological tool will be developed that will integrate these results. This web application will automatically provide users with individual information and detailed feedback on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) aspects, as well as economic aspects of the users’ business model.
