If you ever asked yourself which institution does finance a project for e-learning boosting innovation in the multifunctional agriculture sector and why, you will be interested in reading this article.
Let us start by saying the eTOMATO is a project financed in the framework of ERASMUS+, which is the European Union’s programme to support education, training, youth and sport in Europe. Its budget of €14.7 billion will provide opportunities for over 4 million Europeans to study, train, gain experience, and volunteer abroad. Set to last until 2020, Erasmus+ doesn’t just have opportunities for students. Merging seven prior programmes, it has opportunities for a wide variety of individuals and organisations.
In the rich menu of the opportunities offered by Erasmus+, there are also the so-called “Knowledge Alliances” initiatives. And this is scheme that allowed us to have our our project financed! In fact, this sub-programme aims at strengthening Europe’s innovation capacity and at fostering innovation in higher education, business and the broader socio-economic environment and, in particular:
- developing new, innovative and multidisciplinary approaches to teaching and learning
- stimulating entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial skills of higher education teaching staff and company staff
- facilitate the exchange, flow and co-creation of knowledge.
In the call 2018, the 5th for this program, among the more than 120 project proposals presented, just 31 were financed. Among them, clearly, our project.
If you follow our project, you know that eTOMATO is giving its contribution for reaching all the three main objectives of the program.
In addition to this, eTOMATO is also encompassing the main features of a Knowledge Alliance, as it is trying to
- foster innovation in higher education and innovation through higher education in enterprises and their socio-economic environment;
- providing sustainability of university-business cooperation, thanks to a strong and committed partnership with a balanced participation from enterprises and higher education institutions
- creating results that can have an impact going beyond the project’s lifetime and beyond the organisations involved in the Alliance. In our case, the main result to exploit is the e-learning course.
So, if you have any ideas related to these domains, don’t be shy: Knowledge Alliance could the scheme for making your dreams real.