REady for BUSiness - Integrating and validating practical entrepreneurship skills in engineering and ICT studies

European business sector pays an ever more increasing attention to competences such as sense of initiative and entrepreneurship. The recommendation 2006/962/EC on key competences for lifelong learning highlights paramount importance of these key competences for employability. These competences related to entrepreneurship play a paramount role in EU neighbouring countries in their development process towards higher performing market economies and convergence with EU economic and social standards, their employers miss these competences in graduates particularly from ICT and engineering. WB countries and Russia in general have a high level of resistance to private initiatives, business and entrepreneurship. Many of the youngsters prefer “safe” employment at public enterprises, awareness and appreciation of own entrepreneurship potentials is low.The project aims at developing, testing, validating and mainstreaming holistic and needs driven open learning modules to promote entrepreneurship competences of ICT and engineering graduates at the interface of academic education and learning in practice business contexts.Competence level of graduates in participating partner countries is researched and regional training needs are identified; modular, practice-oriented entrepreneurship trainings are developed; validation system comprising a suite of entrepreneurship-related competences descriptions, context-related reference systems to assess and evidence these competences, and an online assessment and validation system based on the proven and tested Level 5 approach are created and used; a connection of this assessment and validation system to formal validation and accreditation systems (ECTS) and certification systems (EUROPASS) will be explored to allow for transnational exploitation of acquired competences; entrepreneurship training modules and competence validation system are piloted, evaluated and mainstreamed into existing curricula in ICT and engineering programmes.