Background

Traditional paths of organisational cultures, especially among companies in the ICT sector, are not effectively answering to the rapid changes of economic development calling for increased competitive advantages. Companies and businesses need all too often to rely on the innovative and productive potential of their human resources, leaving behind rigid structures of intracompany production of new ideas that could be the next big thing in the world of business. Taking into consideration the increasingly competitive environment, companies have to constantly diversify, increase productivity and innovate. Intrapreneurs, as the unexploited entrepreneurial ‘brains’ within, are perfectly suited as driving forces towards these goals, while they can be found at all levels of an organisation. What organisations have to do is allow them to flourish, stimulate, support, and promote them as integral parts of their corporate strategies and culture. This in turn, should be the subject of well designed, organised and implemented training structures, engulfing practical and theoretical aspects which will unleash the entrepreneurial powers within companies and organisations, building on novel ways of how things can be done to much higher benefits for all – employers and employees, companies and enterprises, national and European economies at large.

The objectives

INTRAPRISE will focus on designing an intrapreneurial training programme responding to the needs of the ICT sector in order to increase employability, innovation, productivity, and performance in a period of serious economic challenges. Addressing the intrapreneurs’ training needs and constraints (e.g. limited budget and time to devote to training; mobility constraints; bureaucratic organisational cultures) the project will:

• Provide end users with practical intrapreneurial competences and skills training by developing a training syllabus structured around self-contained, short and focused modules with background concepts, tools and techniques (i.e. presentation material, self-learning tests, revision exercises, case studies, quizzes);
• Assist end users in acquiring and applying intrapreneurial competencies and skills on the job in a flexible way, that is, fitting their busy schedules by designing an innovative blended methodology (i.e. face-to-face/ online synchronous/ self-study sessions) supported by action learning which will help participants effectively engage in real life problem-solving, self-reflection and peer learning;
• Enhance work place learning by carrying out follow up feedback sessions with intrapreneurs discussing how they apply new skills on the job, the needs they have, or the problems they face in order to enhance transfer of training on the job and maintain it in the long run;
• Produce a tested and integrated blended training programme to be used at a European level beyond the project’s scope through mainstreaming.

Who is implementing Intraprise

INTRAPRISE has been developed by a transnational consortium, specifically set up for the purpose of implementing the project. It involves 9 actors from 6 Erasmus+ countries and namely the Cyprus University of Technology (project coordinator) and RNDO in Cyprus, MTC sprl and Eurocio in Belgium, Militos S.A. and Found.ation in Greece, Melius s.r.l in Italy, Singular Logic in Romania, and Rambla Asesores (RBS) in Spain. The partnership has been put together pulling in expertise from the fields of entrepreneurial education and guidance, the ICT sector and business community, both in terms of research and commercial aspects, as well as the field of wide ranging organizations and associations representing the labour market and especially the ICT sector. Intraprise started in September 2014 and will conclude its work in August 2017.