University-Business Cooperation to design a transnational curriculum for energy efficiency operations

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we propose a methodology to support the Curriculum Design and Development (CDD) process with the aim of aligning competences provided by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) with the ones required by companies. The proposed methodology stems from the identification of companies’ training needs and aims at classifying a set of specific competences that are derived through a desk analysis of the existing academic offer. The novelty of the proposed methodology is represented by the introduction of quantitative indicators used for competences’ classification which may support decision-makers in the individuation of the expected learning objectives of the curriculum. The proposed approach has been developed and tested in the context of a European Project (TrainERGY – Training for Energy Efficient Operations) involving four European countries (Italy, Poland, UK and Greece), whose objective was the definition of a transnational curriculum oriented to qualify better practitioners involved in energy efficiency operations in SMEs.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher Education
• curriculum design and development
• University – Business Cooperation
• sustainability
• energy Efficient operations

Acknowledgements

The data presented in this paper have been collected with the joint effort of the authors and the rest of TrainERGY project team from the Univerisity of Lodz (Poland), the University of Sheffield (UK) and the South-East European Research Centre (Greece). We also want to thank the anonymous referee for their valuable comments, which undoubtedly helped us improve the quality of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was partially supported by the project ‘TrainERGY - Training for Energy Efficient Operations’, funded by Erasmus+ (Project Number: 2015-1-PL01-KA203-016919). This research was partially supported by the project ‘PRESS - Promoting Environmentally Sustainable SMEs’, funded by Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (Project Number: 538851-LLP-1-2013-1-UK-ERASMUS-EQR).