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Over the last decades, the importance of entrepreneurial education (EE) for the personal development of young generations has gained momentum among policymakers, practitioners and scholars. This paper offers some insights into the way T-shaped PhD programs can trigger transdisciplinary abilities of STEM students, making them even more ready toward venturing activities.

To achieve the purpose of the study, the effectiveness of a new T-shaped doctoral model was explored, testing it on a sample of STEM PhD students at Polytechnic School of University of Naples Federico II, using a qualitative-quantitative approach.

The results prove the positive influence that the T-shaped PhD program has on students in terms of vertical skills and horizontal capabilities attainment for entrepreneurial readiness.

This study advances interesting managerial and policy implications for activating virtuous collaborations to better respond to the need of current socioeconomic scenarios through academic knowledge.

Despite the growing relevance of EE, research about its influence at PhD level and the effect of different pedagogical methods remains scarce and controversial. Thus, this research explores if EE can support PhD students in science and technology transdisciplinarity terms of innovation management.

The purpose of this study is to address the challenges of teaching sustainable development to computer engineering students. Part of the problem is that they perceive the topic as irrelevant for their future profession.

To address this challenge, we introduced a project element into a course on sustainable development where the students developed applications for sustainable mobility together with the local public transport authority, an academic institution and a multinational telecom company.

The findings conclude that the course changes improved the overall student satisfaction while succeeding in anchoring sustainable development in a context which the students can relate to. The collaboration was also perceived as fruitful by the external stakeholders who encouraged the students to stay in touch for their bachelor theses and internships.

The theoretical implication is a first attempt in integrating sustainable development education with entrepreneurial experiences, whereas the practical implication is a description of how the integration can be realized.

The contribution is therefore of value for both educational researchers to open novel research opportunities and for teachers to describe new possibilities for sustainable development education.

The contribution describes how entrepreneurial experiences can be used to motivate engineering students in mandatory courses on sustainable development and ethics. The approach is novel in that the approach has not been described earlier in this context.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the supply chain management (SCM) skills that support the sensing and seizing of opportunities in a changing business environment.

Based on the previous literature on the T-shaped model of SCM skills, data were collected through a mail survey among Australian business executives. The resultant skill sets are grouped along factors that support the sensing vs seizing of opportunities.

Interestingly from an SCM perspective, functional logistics-related skills are important to maintain competitiveness but are not the ones contributing to a firm’s ability to sense opportunities and threats, and to seize opportunities in a changing business environment. The authors, therefore, support the notion that supply chain managers should be managers first. Factual SCM knowledge is the solid basis, but otherwise only an entry requirement in this field.

Problem-solving skills, along with forecasting and customer/supplier relationship management, stand out as important components that support the ability of supply chain managers to sense and shape opportunities and threats in a turbulent business environment. This focus would tend to suggest the importance of supply chain integration and collaboration as management approaches. Other SCM skills from warehousing and inventory management to transportation and purchasing are more prevalent for maintaining competitiveness.

The results of the survey and the consequential analysis indicate that the content of tertiary-level educational programmes should be significantly reviewed to deliver two distinct (but partially overlapping) streams that focus on the generalist and functionalist managers who must work together in the management of the increasingly global and complex supply chains.

Functional skills often form the basis of training and education programmes for supply chain managers. Whilst these form the solid foundation for their jobs, they are entry requirements at best. In a changing business environment, other skills are needed for success. Given that turbulence is becoming the norm rather than the exception, this finding necessitates rethinking in training and education programmes, as well as in the recruitment of supply chain managers.

Testing the T-shaped model of SCM skills from a dynamic capabilities perspective, the results of the factor analysis lead to a regrouping of skill sets in terms of sensing and seizing opportunities in a turbulent business environment.

Challenge-based learning (CBL) is a trending educational concept in engineering education. The literature suggests that there is a growing variety in CBL implementations, stemming from the flexible and abstract definition of CBL that is shaped by teachers' perceptions. The chapter discusses how the CBL concept has been developed at Eindhoven University of Technology and describes the development and use of two educational resources aimed to facilitate conceptualization, design, and research of CBL for curriculum designers and teachers. The first resource is a set of CBL design principles for framing the variety of CBL and providing teachers with advice about how to develop CBL courses within an overall CBL curriculum. The second resource is a curriculum-mapping instrument called the CBL compass, which aims at mapping CBL initiatives and identifying gaps, overlaps, and misalignments in CBL implementation at a curriculum level. Both CBL design principles and the CBL compass have been developed by combining insights from theory and practical examples of CBL at TU/e into a higher order model of vision, teaching and learning, and support. We discuss the two educational instruments and showcase their application in the Eindhoven Engineering Education (E³) program, and we discuss preliminary findings and insights. The chapter concludes with recommendations for future practice and research.

The aim of the paper is to present the experience of New Bulgarian University (NBU) and the methodology followed for changing its educational programmes and developing new ones according to the labour market needs.

Initially, the paper focuses on the need for adapting curricula for meeting the labour market demands for information and communication technologies (ICT) professional skills. It provides an overview of the ICT skills supply and demand trends in Europe. A special emphasis is made on the dialogue of leading stakeholders in Europe for developing European E-Competence Framework. After introducing the overall picture in Europe, the paper presents the environment in Bulgaria for higher education, research and innovation and the ICT skills challenges in the country. The last part of the paper is based on the project methodology and its results. First, the methodology behind the design of a new Masters programme is given, and next, the concepts for adapting NBU educational programmes according to the labour market needs are presented.

Bulgarian universities seldom introduce multidisciplinary educational programmes. Generally, industry involvement in higher education is at low level, and university programmes are not linked to skills needs of future employees. Some good examples exist in the ICT university – business collaboration.

The development of information economy depends on the existence of adequate skills for using and developing ICT. In the last decades, ICT skills supply and demand remains an evergreen issue in many European Union Member States. Bulgaria also faces the challenges of meeting industrial demands for e-competences of its workforce. The paper presents an approach which could be followed by other university teams in designing or changing their educational programmes. At the same time, it provides insight on the overall environment in the country, and the challenges which different stakeholders face in the development of the knowledge-based economy.

In the past few decades, sustainability in higher education has become ever more prevalent, although the diversity in pace of adoption and the wide range of interpretations and practices is huge. The purpose of this study is to present recent research on organizational change processes in universities.

The methodological approach applied corresponds to the social issue maturation framework, to identify, describe and assess patterns of change across higher education institutions. The maturation of sustainability in universities can be divided into four stages: emergence, popularization, formalization and maturity.

The findings indicate that sustainability processes often begin as ad hoc processes which grow and mature over time as a range of different actors join in. However, sustainability in universities is increasingly connected with sustainability in the private sector and with other public actors. Moreover, there is a growing acknowledgement of the interactions between society, industry and academia.

The value of the paper is to provide a critical assessment of the potential of living lab projects initiated in Belgium (Brussels) and Chile (Santiago de Chile) to anchor sustainability firmly both in the functioning of the university and in the interactions with the neighborhood. The authors reflect on the requirements and the implementation of these initiatives as a strong indication of mature sustainability integration in, and by way of, universities.

The present work involves analytical and experimental investigation of sloshing in a two-dimensional rectangular tank including the effect of porous baffles to control and/or reduce the wave motion in the sloshing tank. The purpose of this study is to assess the analytical solutions of the drag coefficient effect on porous baffles performance to track free surface motion variation in the sloshing tank by comparison with experimental shake table tests under a range of sway excitation.

The linear second-order ordinary differential equations for liquid sloshing in the rectangular tank were solved using Newmark’s beta method and obtained the analytical solutions for liquid sloshing with dual vertical porous baffles of full submergence depths in a sway-oscillated rectangular tank following the methodology similar to Warnitchai and Pinkaew (1998) and Tait (2008).

The porous baffles significantly reduce wave elevation in the varying filled levels of the tank compared to the baffle-free tank under the range of excitation frequencies. It is observed that the Reynolds number-dependent drag coefficient for porous baffles in the tank can significantly reduce the sloshing elevations and is found to be effective to achieve higher damping compared to the porosity-dependent drag coefficient for porous baffles in the sloshing tank. The analytical model’s response to free surface elevation variations in the sloshing tank was compared with the experiment’s test results. The analytical results matched with shake table test results with a quantitative difference near the first resonant frequency.

The scope of the study is limited to porous baffles performance under range sway motion and three different filling levels in the tank. The porous baffle performance includes Reynolds number dependent drag coefficient to explore the damping effect in the sloshing tank.

The porous baffles with low-level porosities in the sloshing tank have many engineering applications where the first resonant mode of sloshing in the tank is more important. The porous baffle drag coefficient is an important parameter to study the baffle’s damping effect in sloshing tanks. Hence, obtained analytical solution for liquid sloshing in the rectangular tank with Reynolds number as well as porosity-dependent drag coefficient (model 1) and porosity-dependent drag coefficient porous baffles (model 2) performance is discussed. The model’s test results were validated using a series of shake table sloshing experiments for three fill levels in the tank with sway motion at various excitation frequencies covering the first four sloshing resonant modes.

This article aims at the understanding of specific spaces where entrepreneurship education (EE) happens – inside and outside the classroom.

Building on frameworks such as formal versus non-formal entrepreneurial education and institutional versus non-institutional actors, this research applies structural equation modeling (SEM) to explore which spaces entrepreneurs attended as undergraduate students. Going beyond intentionality, the authors collected data from 175 respondents in Brazil, all of the respondents are entrepreneurs whose companies are at least one year old.

Results demonstrate that student-led activities are as important as institutional ones when training future entrepreneurs, while specific in-classroom activities feature the lowest impact among the institutional ones.

Sample size and characteristics could impact the generalization power, but, since the results fit within research criteria, researchers can benefit by reflecting over new research horizons, going beyond classroom studies and understanding the university as an ecosystem of learning interventions.

Results can be useful to university managers when designing institutional policies, fostering a diverse set of undergraduate experiences towards entrepreneurship training.

Although current literature has focused on classroom education, researchers have been pointing out the need of stepping out of the classroom, analyzing other spaces such as student-led movements, co-curricular programs and more.

Thermo-magnetic convective flow analysis under the impact of thermal radiation for heat and entropy generation phenomena is an active research field for understanding the efficiency of thermodynamic systems in various engineering sectors. This study aims to examine the characteristics of convective heat transport and entropy generation within an inverted T-shaped porous enclosure saturated with a hybrid nanofluid under the influence of thermal radiation and magnetic field.

The mathematical model incorporates the Darcy-Forchheimer-Brinkmann model and considers thermal radiation in the energy balance equation. The complete mathematical model has been numerically simulated through the penalty finite element approach at varying values of flow parameters, such as Rayleigh number (Ra), Hartmann number (Ha), Darcy number (Da), radiation parameter (Rd) and porosity value (e). Furthermore, the graphical results for energy variation have been monitored through the energy-flux vector, whereas the entropy generation along with its individual components, namely, entropy generation due to heat transfer, fluid friction and magnetic field, are also presented. Furthermore, the results of the Bejan number for each component are also discussed in detail. Additionally, the concept of ecological coefficient of performance (ECOP) has also been included to analyse the thermal efficiency of the model.

The graphical analysis of results indicates that higher values of Ra, Da, e and Rd enhance the convective heat transport and entropy generation phenomena more rapidly. However, increasing Ha values have a detrimental effect due to the increasing impact of magnetic forces. Furthermore, the ECOP result suggests that the rising value of Da, e and Rd at smaller Ra show a maximum thermal efficiency of the mathematical model, which further declines as the Ra increases. Conversely, the thermal efficiency of the model improves with increasing Ha value, showing an opposite trend in ECOP.

Such complex porous enclosures have practical applications in engineering and science, including areas like solar power collectors, heat exchangers and electronic equipment. Furthermore, the present study of entropy generation would play a vital role in optimizing system performance, improving energy efficiency and promoting sustainable engineering practices during the natural convection process.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first ever attempted detailed investigation of heat transfer and entropy generation phenomena flow parameter ranges in an inverted T-shaped porous enclosure under a uniform magnetic field and thermal radiation.

The purpose of this study is to explore the phase change (PC) dynamics in a T-shaped ventilated cavity having multiple inlet and outlet ports during nanofluid convection with phase change material (PCM) packed bed-installed system.

Finite element method was used to analyze the PC dynamics and phase completion time for encapsulated PCM within a vented cavity during the convection of nanoparticle loaded fluid. The study is performed for different Reynolds number of flow streams (Re₁ and Re₂ between 300 and 900), temperature difference (ΔT₁ and ΔT₂ between −5 and 10), aspect ratio of the cavity (between 0.5 and 1.5) and nanoparticle loading (between 0.02% and 0.1%).

It is observed that phase transition can be controlled by assigning different velocities and temperatures at the inlet ports of the T-shaped cavity. The PC becomes fast especially when the Re number and temperature of fluid in the port vary closer to the wall (second port). When the configurations with the lowest and highest Re number of the second port are considered up to 54.7% in reduction of complete phase transition time is obtained, while this amount is 78% when considering the lowest and highest inlet temperatures. The geometric factor which is the aspect ratio has also affected the flow field and PC dynamics. Up to 78% reduction in the phase transition time is obtained at the highest aspect ratio. Further improvements in the performance are achieved by using nanoparticles in the base fluid. The amounts in the phase transition time reduction are 8% and 10.5% at aspect ratio of 0.5 and 1.5 at the highest nanoparticle concentration.

The thermofluid system and offered control mechanism for PC dynamics control can be considered for the design, optimization, further modeling and performance improvements of applications with PCM installed systems.