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INVITATION to PARTICIPATE in the NEXT FORUM ACTIVITIES

FORUM ON PARTNERSHIPS AND LOCAL GOVERNANCE

7 – 20 July 2010
Call for experts

Strategic approaches to improving employment outcomes for ethnic minority youth

Submission deadline: 20 July 2010

18 - 20 October 2010 Trento - Italy
Capacity building seminar
Universities, skills and entrepreneurship

Registration deadline: 1 September 2010
 
7 – 20 July 2010
Call for experts: Strategic approaches to improving employment outcomes for ethnic minority youth

Submission deadline: 20 July 2010
The “Fulfilling promise” LEED project is analysing strategic approaches to improving employment outcomes for ethnic minority and immigrant youth. OECD LEED will be holding a seminar on this topic in collaboration with the European Commission and the OECD LEED Forum on Partnerships and Local Governance on October 22nd 2010 in Paris. The seminar will be used to develop a manual to provide policy advice to local practitioners.

In order to feed into this process, OECD LEED is seeking experts in the field to contribute local case studies. Each case study should focus on a locality which has experienced labour market exclusion amongst ethnic minority youth and established a locally based approach to tackling this problem. Case studies should be approximately 3,000 words and should be completed by the end of September 2010. The fee for the research will be 2,500 euro. The deadline for applications is 20th July 2010.

18 - 20 October 2010 Trento - Italy
Capacity building seminar: Universities, skills and entrepreneurship
Registration deadline: 1 September 2010

To apply please complete the short online questionnaire by 1 September 2010


BACKGROUND
Universities are unique places from which great ideas can emerge. Gathering people from various disciplines with different approaches and perceptions of risk makes universities an environment conducive to nascent entrepreneurship. More and more universities across OECD member and non-member countries respond to this opportunity in an active way: they offer courses in entrepreneurship and support future entrepreneurs in accessing finance and premises. Governments play an important role by providing seed funding and a legal framework that sets the right incentives for universities to promote entrepreneurship. But, local partnerships between universities and other higher education institutions, business development organisations and local governments that bring together different efforts and resources, are critical to developing and sustaining new firms.

Having the right mix of attitudes, motivation, knowledge and skills is crucial for starting-up, running and growing a business. There is a debate on whether or not entrepreneurship can be taught, what training should be provided, how and by whom. Some universities rely on a more traditional approach in which their business schools are the main actors in developing skills for entrepreneurship, whereas others engage on a broader level by integrating entrepreneurship skills into curricula, using new teaching methods and involving entrepreneurs as teachers. International evidence confirms the capacity of ‘entrepreneurial education’ to improve learning outcomes and to develop entrepreneurial mindsets.

Much can be learned from an international exchange of information about the rationales behind university entrepreneurship support and local partnerships between universities, business development organisations and governments to foster entrepreneurship. This seminar will explore strengths and weaknesses of different approaches, and discuss what constitutes good practice in local entrepreneurship support.

THE SEMINAR
The 2.5-day programme will be structured around a mix of case study presentations by invited experts, OECD analysts and participants and creative group activities. Guided by an OECD criteria list of good practice in local entrepreneurship support, participants are expected to work on individual action plans that will help their organisations to contribute to and benefit from partnership working in entrepreneurship support. An OPENSPACE session will offer participants opportunities to engage in depth-interviews with people who design and implement good practices.

Monday, 18 October 2010
 
Morning
 1. Promoting innovators, risk-takers and job creators: the role of universities
This session is dedicated to the role of universities in local economic development and university entrepreneurship support. Presentations of findings from cross-country comparative OECD work by IMHE and LEED, and creative group activities will provide participants with tools to identify the hidden entrepreneurial potential of a local economy and to develop strategic approaches to unleash it.

Participants will start working on individual action plans. Work on this will continue in sessions 3 and 4.
 
Afternoon
 2. OPENSPACE
Participants will meet with peers in charge of entrepreneurship education and start-up support and engage in short in-depth discussions around success factors, problems and transferability.

Up to four rounds of meetings in small groups will be organised.
 
Tuesday, 19 October 2010
 All day
 3. The learning journey: from thinking to acting entrepreneurial

In this all-day session the aim is to reveal some of the key links between entrepreneurial success, attitudes, motivation, knowledge, skills and experience. The focus will be on university entrepreneurship education.

We will enter the well-known debate on whether or not entrepreneurship can be learned, and discuss what are skills for entrepreneurship that can be trained, what are successful teaching methods, how to recruit students, the importance of teambuilding and how to get good teachers, also from outside universities.

In several creative group activities, throughout the day, participants will analyse various case studies with the help of an OECD criteria list on good practice in university entrepreneurship support. Work on individual action plans, commenced in session 1, will continue with a focus on entrepreneurship education.
 
Wednesday, 20 October 2010
 
Morning
 4. Turning skills into success: the role of partnerships in start-up and growth support

Effective start-up support is all about making support systems accessible and attractive for young entrepreneurs, and about rectifying market and system failures in financing and premises to facilitate business survival and growth. This requires a common strategic framework that allows local actors to join efforts in making best use of available resources. In this concluding session, participants will finalise their individual action plans by adding the start-up and growth support dimension.


WHO
The seminar is addressed to:

· University management, professors and researchers, who are actively involved in teaching entrepreneurship and in mentoring start-ups, as well as university staff responsible for start-up support.

· National, regional and local government representatives, who are already involved, or interested in, the strategic development and financing of local entrepreneurship support, with a focus on universities.

· Representatives of local business support organisations that are mainly dealing with university spin-offs, and already engaged, or interested in, developing a partnership with universities.

APPLICATIONS

Applications are welcome from OECD member and non-member countries.

There are no participation fees, but participants are expected to cover their own costs.

The working language of the seminar will be English.

To apply, please complete the short online questionnaire by 1 September 2010
 

By 8 September 2010, 25 participants will be selected on the basis of their questionnaire.

For further information on the seminar, please contact Elisa Campestrin at elisa.campestrin@oecd.org.

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Elisa Campestrin

OECD LEED Forum on Partnerships and Local Governance at

OECD LEED Trento Centre for Local Development

Vicolo San Marco

38122 Trento-Italy

direct line: +39 0461 277609

fax: +39 0461 277650

elisa.campestrin@oecd.org

www.trento.oecd.org

www.oecd.org/cfe/leed/forum/partnerships