GRANADA - STRATEGIES FOR THE IDENTIFICATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF MANAGEMENT SKILLS AMONG THE YOUTH

The improvements on the employability of its graduates, the generation of specialized knowledge accountable for turning itself into products, services, innovative processes or the role to contribute to equity and social changes are the main challenges to deal with. In this regard, the promotion of entrepreneurship is a key factor and the University of Granada has decided to encourage it firmly creating a Coordination on General Entrepreneurship in order to transversely direct all activities on this scope and design the entrepreneurship strategy to be further implemented.

This strategy seeks several objectives: on one hand, to increase entrepreneurial abilities, the training of initiative people with critical spirit who promote changes and innovation whether creating their own business establishments or working for others. On the other hand, the strategy seeks to keep supporting the implementation of university-spin-offs thanks to the help of researchers who contribute to establish a state of the art productive tissue.

The University has looked for the cooperation of other agents for the implementation of this entrepreneurship strategy. These agents from the entrepreneurial ecosystem (understanding that the coordinated action among institutions, enterprises and the university is essential for projects arising from the university context) can help to boost these projects so that they can contribute to the creation of employment and wealth so needed for Granada.

Many activities and programmes for the creation and speeding up of entrepreneurial projects or innovative socials have been implemented under the hallmark UGR Emprendedora.  To the same extent, it has available co-working facilities and incubation spaces to support the graduated entrepreneurs on the initial stages of their projects.

In the framework of the activities aimed to the promotion of the entrepreneurial culture stand out the “Jornadas de Emprendimiento” (Entrepreneurial Sessions) in the Centres and the “Foro de Emprendimiento” (Entrepreneurial Forum). Among the vocational training activities stand out the “Emprende tu Trabajo Fin de Grado” (TFG) and the Emprende tu Trabajo Fin de Master (TFM) programmes (Launch your Final Graduation Paper and Launch your Final Master Paper) with the purpose of turn them on entrepreneurial projects.

“Las Jornadas de Emprendimiento” takes place in each of the 21 Centres belonging to the university. The sessions follow an attractive dynamic for graduate and postgraduate students like creative workshops, brainstorming activities, digital marketing, meetings with entrepreneurs graduated from the same centres where they share their experiences, mistakes and wise decisions they went through when they launched their start up projects.

“El Foro de Emprendimiento” is held annually and brings together more than 200 participants from university communities and the entrepreneur ecosystem on Granada along with 50 local and national speakers. Round tables, workshops. Start-ups contests and an exhibition of entrepreneurs' projects make the Entrepreneurial Forum an event with a high-profile media dissemination which allows creating synergies and the production of new networking projects.

As outcomes of this programme, projects such as the named “Arte Social Sostenible” (Sustainable Social Art) have been fulfilled. Participants were graduates from the disciplines of Social Education and Fine Arts and within the frame of the so-called social entrepreneurship. It arises from a social need to develop sustainable programmes and from viewing arts as a path for sociocultural expression especially for the groups at risk of social exclusion. (*Arte Social Sostenible)

Another project involving Final Interdisciplinary Graduation Papers is the named “SmartUGR”, which proposes the creation of a space for the conceiving and production of sustainable projects in order to promote the University connected to a Smart City, such as the city of Granada.  (*SmartUGR)

These initiatives hope to become strategies aiming to contribute to the development, attraction and retention of young talents from the GEN-Y cities and to enable them to attain sustainable economic growth.