NEEDS:The project "INTENSE – INTernational ENntrepreneurship Skills Europe" responds to the needs for internationalization of European Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SME), the needs of Higher Education Institutes’ (HEI) students to gain international, entrepreneurial, and innovation competences and HEIs needs to stimulate and measure these competencies.OBJECTIVES: The objective of the project is to develop and implement an innovative and complex teaching module between HEI and SME, in order to stimulate entrepreneurial behaviour and internationalisation of students, HEI staff and SMEs. This leads to increasing employability of HEI students and HEI university staff. TOPICS: - Enterprise, industry and SMEs (incl. entrepreneurship)INTENSE corresponds to the targets set in the “Agenda for the modernisation of Europe’s higher education systems” by improving the quality and relevance of higher education, by promoting mobility and cross-border cooperation and by linking higher education, research and business.-New innovative curricula/ educational methods/ development of training coursesThe project furthermore corresponds to the goals set in the EU communication “Opening up Education”, as INTENSE stimulates innovative learning practices, combines face-to-face and online learning and improves technical skills and problem-solving abilities of students in real-life situations.- Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship educationThe project will contribute to fulfil the strategy EU2020 indicator of graduates being employed, as INTENSE creates an international learning experience and thereby increases entrepreneurial competences among students.PROJECT TEAM:The core partners of the project consist of partner universities of applied sciences of HTW Berlin, HU Utrecht, UC Limburg, TUAS Turku, and the University EFOS Osijek. All partners set up national steering structures with students, SMEs and other relevant stakeholders.APPROACH:HEI will develop an interactive and transnational teaching module on SME internationalization. Via intermediary organisations such as chambers of commerce, HEIs will develop links and build a network with SMEs and entrepreneurs engaged / interested in international growth. INTENSE brings together these SMEs with teams of students and HEI staff in five European partner countries, which will help them to do cross-border business. Student teams act as real entrepreneurs supporting the SMEs internationalization. There will be a pilot run in academic year 2017/18 and a full run in 2018/19. The INTENSE project will develop and pilot an instrument to measure innovation competences before/after the implementation of the project among students, entrepreneurs and HEI staff members.MAIN Results:For students: INTENSE will compile innovative teaching material to train students in analysing the readiness for internationalisation and cross-border matchmaking of SMEs. The students work on real SME cases and develop individual situation analyses for the SMEs. In a virtual platform as well as in face-to-face meetings (ISPs) they get together with parallel teams from other participant universities to find potential customers/channels/buyers for the partner SMEs. Students will present their work during national multiplier events to potential future employers and therefore increase their employability.For HEIs: The INTENSE multi-media compilation of teaching material relevant for internationalisation for SMEs will be produced and made openly available. Staff from participating universities will be trained in this new learning module and in the innovation measurement instrument. To ensure the transfer of the project outputs to additional universities, a teaching manual plus a module description will be developed. Awareness for this innovative module will be raised by international multiplier events and by publications in relevant journals.For SMEs: Besides the tailor-made support of individual SMEs, INTENSE will gather relevant information and adaptations of some teaching material in a toolkit for internationalisation for SMEs. Awareness of the private sector, public institutions and students for the project result will be raised by national multiplier events.For policy makers: INTENSE lessons learned and recommendations how to stimulate internationalisation of SMEs, modernisation of universities and employability of students will be elaborated in a public conference with universities, public authorities and private sector. ImpactThe teaching module will increase the employability of students, through the acquired entrepreneurial and transversal competences. The INCODE Barometer will make these competences visible and recognisable among students, HEIs and employers. Open Educational Resouces (OER) will increase the numbers of beneficiaries of the module and the open access approach of the course will increase awareness and contribute to the establishment of OER.