Most ESSI members offer education and/or training regarding social innovation competence. Several of them have developed Master courses.
EDUCATION AND TRAINING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF DEUSTO
UDEUSTO Innovative Education and Training
With a long and well established tradition, founded in 1886 as a higher education institution, the University of Deusto (UDEUSTO) has a mission and educational goals firmly grounded in academic excellence and social responsibility, aiming at generating economic sustainable growth and making positive contributions towards the construction of fairer and more inclusive and humane societies.
Over the last decades, and as a result of the University of Deusto’s (UDEUSTO) international recognition for its robust and innovative educational structure, a dynamic ecosystem has been generated among the University’s main stakeholders both locally and internationally. The ecosystem represents a network connecting outside institutions with internal structures to promote cooperation, co-creation, and interdisciplinarity among different doctoral programmes and research groups.
The research and education at UDEUSTO is structured around a threefold dimension composed of international, inter-sectorial, and interdisciplinary components: the triple “I”.
To achieve this structure, UDEUSTO has created 5 Interdisciplinary Research Platforms, with the aim of promoting collaboration between UDEUSTO research group and researchers working from different disciplines, approaches and methodological frameworks around strategic topics: Ageing and wellbeing, Gender Equality; B-Creative, Social Justice and Inclusion and Strenghening Citizens Participation
In the same way, these Interdisciplinary Platforms show UDEUSTO researchers’ work and their potential. Thereby they are strategic dissemination tools to connect them with similar foreign researchers and research groups as well as with different actors, stakeholders and civil society actors.
• Undergraduate:
Entrepreneurship Course (Innobandis)
The Specialization Course on Innovation and Entrepreneurship is an opportunity for additional training. Students can take this course simultaneously to the degrees and double degrees at the San Sebastian Campus as an excellent educational complement.
This course allows the student to develop:
– Innovative attitude: innovative procedures design and application that lead to best solutions for real situations and projects.
– Entrepreneurial attitude: opportunities identification and leading capacity to start these opportunities up, involving other actors in their vision and projects
Open Programmes-DBS
DeustoSTART fulfils a dual function, both in terms of the experience and development of the entrepreneur and, by extension, the project.
o Leardership in sport innovation- PLID
o Public leadership on entrepeneurship and innovation (PLPE)
Annual Training on Social Economy-
Annual training activity organized by the Institute of Cooperative Studies, specialized center affiliated to the Law Faculty, since 2012 and supported by the Basque Government (Social Economy Department).
The activity consists on volunteer workshops for Law Faculty students (law degrees and double degree on Law and International Relations) organized in the first degree cycle focused on cooperativism and social economy.
The workshops are structured in two-hours sessions and deal with the following topics:
1.-Cooperativism history, values and principles.
2.-Cooperatives´ legal framework
3.-Cooperatives´ specific taxes issues
4.- Cooperatives´ specific labour issues
5.-Creation of a new cooperative
Students on this degree programme learn to design objects that surround us – furniture, lighting, electrical appliances, machines, vehicles, etc. with an innovative approach, providing solutions for users’ needs; strengthening brands and companies competitiveness and local economies.
Students acquire a global and strategic outlook of the entire product life cycle. They learn to apply innovation and to generate added value for products and services, such as sustainability, ethics as opposed to planned obsolescence.
Students work in the Design Laboratory where they can apply different Design Thinking, User Experience (UX) methodologies and entrepreneurship for Social Innovation. An ideal space for gathering knowledge acquired about the product, the company and the market; where students have the opportunity not only to express their ideas graphically but also to validate aspects of eco-design, ergonomics, equipment, industrial processes, Internet of Things (loT) and communication of their projects.
• Master Degrees:
MA Social Innovation (Official)
This Degree, designed by Deusto Social Innovation in collaboration with the Social and Human Sciences Faculty, offers a specialized, interdisciplinary and advanced training on research, consultancy and social innovation.
It is a profession-oriented degree for students who want to acquire the necessary skills to perform a set of tasks and responsibilities related to social research and development projects focused on social innovation, in an integrated manner.
It combines in a single profile the professional skills required by todays organizations related to R&D in various sectors.
This Degree is aimed at professionals and university graduates from different areas of Social and Human Sciences, as well as other technical disciplines with an interest in having a specialization in the field of social innovation.
Master’s Degree in Competitiveness and Innovation
The Programme relies on a close collaboration between Deusto Business School and Orkestra- Basque Institute of Competitiveness, one of the leading authorities on understanding and promoting territorial competitiveness. Through this collaboration participants will develop a unique sensitivity to the complex relationship between business competitiveness and innovation and their territorial contexts.
The professional itinerary is designed for those who are interested in developing competitiveness and innovation specific management-level careers in private firms, consultancies, governments, technology and research centres, universities and civil society/third sector organisations. The programme pursues business management and/or social science research in the fields of competitiveness and innovation.
The link between business and territory is really crucial to understand what drives competitiveness and innovation, and a unique feature of the Programme is its blending of expertise from business management and territorial development perspectives.
• PhD – Deusto International Research School
Based on its clear mission to approach the social challenges that society currently faces and will face in the near future, and after a process of deep reflection, the university has organized its research and training around interdisciplinary research foci (Ageing and wellbeing, Gender Equality; B-Creative, Social Justice and Inclusion and Strenghening Citizens Participation. In doing so, the university ensures the development of the three key axes of the school: inter-sectorality, interdisciplinarity and international mobility. These four focus areas are oriented to respond to the social challenges that are the core priorities of the European Union, and they constitute the research field of study of the 24 UDEUSTO research teams. All 24 research groups have been granted a label of excellence by the Basque Government.
Around these interdisciplinary areas, seven doctoral programmes provide high-quality training: (1) Business and Territorial Competitiveness, Innovation, and Sustainability, (2) Human Rights: Ethical, Social and Political Challenges, (3) Education, (4) Engineering for the Information Society and Sustainable Development, (5) Leisure, Culture, and Communication for Human Development, (6) Psychology, and (7) Business and Corporate Law.
The inter-sectoral dimension involves joint and collaborative action between the academic and non-academic sectors. Research at UDEUSTO is geared towards solving technical and social problems as identified by key stakeholders. This connection with stakeholders is the cornerstone that ensures the relevance of the projects and the constant flow of transfers. Many of UDEUSTO’s projects are conducted in collaboration with third parties whose experience, expertise, data, and installed capacity is shared with the University. Enterprises, non-profit organisations and charities, education centers, hospitals, museums, and public administrations are but a few of the actors engaged with the University.
Internships, study visits and joint projects are common avenues of participation that are open to UDEUSTO students, and which provides them with deep knowledge and practical experience of social reality. Likewise, such collaborations have proven to be fruitful to all stakeholders by means of the ideation and implementation of solutions for public concerns (e.g. government), and private affairs (e.g. industry), while gaining from experts and practitioners who share their experience and expertise with University students and faculty.
The international dimension is one of the main axis of the DIRS. UDEUSTO doctoral programmes include study periods abroad in renowned research centres throughout the world. UDEUSTO has signed over 50 international cooperation agreements with institutions from different world regions for the mobility of PhD candidates. These study visits are required for students who seek an international perspective in their doctoral theses. International mobility is promoted by the UDEUSTO through a system of scholarships to PhD students to carry out research periods at foreign institutions. Furthermore, the doctoral school counts with a group of international experts who advise on the design of training activities and the selection of candidates.