Support Needs for Scaling Student-Business Challenges
Guidelines for Developing Support Services and Infrastructures for Student-Business Challenges

Fichter, K., Widrat, A. (2024). Guidelines for Developing Support Services and Infrastructures for Student-Business Challenges. Oldenburg, Linköping, Zuidlaren.

How can students and companies be brought together successfully to develop solutions to sustainability challenges? Challenge-based learning connects practice-oriented education with real-world challenges from companies and other organisations. International and virtual formats, however, create additional demands for coordination, matchmaking and technical support.

Support for International Student-Business Challenges

The publication “Support Services for Student-Business Collaboration” examines which support structures can help higher education institutions and companies organise such collaborations effectively. It distinguishes between three types of intermediaries: external providers, internal university-based structures, and hybrid models that combine internal and external support.

Eight Good Practices and 21 Expert Interviews

The analysis draws on an international review of organisations offering services for the planning, implementation and evaluation of challenge-based learning. The researchers also conducted 21 expert interviews with representatives of higher education institutions, companies and intermediary organisations.

Based on predefined criteria, eight good-practice examples were selected for closer analysis. The research included websites, reports, academic publications and case studies. The information collected was subsequently validated with representatives of the respective organisations.

Key Support Needs

  • recruiting companies and students,
  • embedding support structures within higher education institutions,
  • providing technical infrastructure and evaluation support,
  • facilitating exchange among challenge organisers.

The analysis also shows that the field is still at an early stage of development. Successful models cannot simply be transferred from one university or region to another. Support services therefore need to be adapted to specific institutional and regional contexts and further tested in practice.

Here you can download the publication Guidelines for Developing Support Services and Infrastructures for Student-Business Challenges free of charge.

More on the topic Student-Business Challenges

The authors

Prof. Dr. Klaus Fichter is the founder and Director of the Borderstep Institute for Innovation and Sustainability and Professor of Innovation Management and Sustainability at Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg. His research focuses on Sustainable Entrepreneurship, Sustainable Innovations, green start-ups, and methods and metrics for impact measurement. He investigates how sustainable innovations emerge, diffuse, and create entrepreneurial impact. Working at the intersection of innovation research, entrepreneurship, and transformation, he develops research-based approaches to sustainable business and the design of innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Alexandra Widrat is Borderstep Expert Fellow focusing in the Sustainable Entrepreneurship research field and works as a primary school teacher in Berlin. From February 2021 to September 2024, she worked as a researcher in the Sustainable Entrepreneurship team at the Borderstep Institute. She developed target group-oriented content and formats for supporting start-ups and initiatives as part of a global network for edible cities (Edible Cities Network) and worked with educational approaches such as challenge-based learning (CBL) to promote cooperation between students and companies in green venturing formats (ScaleUp4Sustainability).

Publisher

Challenge4Impact
coordinated by Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg

Suggested citation

Fichter, K., Widrat, A. (2024). Guidelines for Developing Support Services and Infrastructures for Student-Business Challenges. Oldenburg, Linköping, Zuidlaren.

Borderstep's Expertise in Sustainability Innovation

Sustainability innovations are at the core of Borderstep’s research. The institute investigates how technological, social, and institutional innovations emerge that conserve resources and reduce emissions. It analyzes the conditions under which these innovations arise, the processes through which they diffuse, and the barriers that hinder their market adoption.

Using qualitative case studies and quantitative models, Borderstep identifies the key success factors of sustainable innovation. Its aim is to demonstrate how policymakers and businesses can effectively promote such innovations. In doing so, the institute provides a scientific foundation for innovation policies that support sustainability transitions.

Topics

Green Economy Ecological Footprint Diffusion Diffusion pathway System Innovation  Transformation • Environmental Innovations

  • Alexandra Widrat, Prof. Dr. Klaus Fichter
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