Project ASPIRE: Engaging Students and Faculty in Extra Curricula Activities to Support Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Teaching

Abstract

This chapter introduces ASPIRE as an example of international collaboration and cooperation, involving 12 universities drawn from 8 countries running over a four-year period. With funding in excess of €1.3m ($US 1.4m), provided by the European Union, it brought together an eclectic mix of private and public institutions unified by a number of common aims and objectives (Mehtap, 2014). It reports and reflects upon the first-hand direct experiences of both authors own participation in the ASPIRE Project over the four years the Project ran.

The success of the project would be determined by the extent to which mutual trust and respect could be established between partners. The intended outcomes included cross institutional capacity building, innovative curriculum design and the development of a footprint beyond the project for further collaboration and cooperation in research, learning and teaching strategies; what the European Union refers to as legacy. One of the many successes, the launch of the Centre For Entrepreneurship (CFE) at Beirut Arab University is used as an exemplar by the authors to illustrate as to how the coming together of international university partners can act as a catalyst to empower and engage the local faculty’s enthusiasm to establish such a legacy in enterprise and entrepreneurship teaching.

Citation

Clements, M. and Abboud, L. (2016), "Project ASPIRE: Engaging Students and Faculty in Extra Curricula Activities to Support Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Teaching", University Partnerships for International Development (Innovations in Higher Education Teaching and Learning, Vol. 8), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 39-57. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2055-364120160000008004