EMMIE - Erasmus Mundus Master in Impact Entrepreneurship

During the first semester in Croatia, participants will get the required basics in General Management. They will develop the key managerial competencies that any would-be entrepreneur should master.

They will move for the second semester to Lithuania to study the key concepts related to the management of technology and innovation. Building core competencies in innovation is essential, since implementing impactful projects requires creativity and innovation.

Participants will finish the curriculum with the 3rd semester in Belgium, at HEC Liège - ULiège. In that final semester, they will acquire the essential competencies that are related to entrepreneurship with a specific slant toward impactful projects.

Transversal activities

In parallel to the curricula that will be delivered in each country, participants will be engaged in several transversal activities.

• Seminars, conferences, networking with associate partners as well as local and international institutions, to develop the participants' understanding of the key challenges associated with the 17 SDGs and to expose them to impactful entrepreneurial projects. The objectives will not only be to develop their competencies, but also to inspire them about possible entrepreneurial projects to develop during the program and to help them build a relevant network of contacts.
• Participants must develop their own entrepreneurial projects with impact during the program. They are supposed to write a feasibility analysis (business plan) of such projects in the setting of a capstone master thesis. During the process, participants will be coached by entrepreneurs and experts. The jury of the project will be composed of a representative of each partner institution. At the end of the program, participants will have to pitch their project in front of entrepreneurs and potential investors. If they intend to create a company in relation to their project, they will be offered the possibility to be incubated into one of the incubators associated with partner institutions.
• The publication of an online Impact Entrepreneurship Magazine: students will be involved in the writing and editing of a special quarterly magazine dedicated to Impact Entrepreneurship, under the coordination of an editorial committee. The Magazine will be a tool of dissemination, through the social networks of EMMIE and of each partner institution.

Detailed program

Pedagogy

The common thread of the pedagogical approach of EMMIE is experience learning and learning by practicing. This will be achieved by a combination of innovative methods that will be performed to offer students the variety of knowledge and skills that are needed to build entrepreneurial competencies.  As an illustration of this blended learning approach, we could mention:

1. business simulations as a learning environment, where students will work with trial and errors and through trying different strategies and approaches, they will be more prepared for the situations in the business environment;
2. case studies, that will provide opportunities to learn the key concepts from practical and real cases;
3. focus groups and in-class discussions that will be used to turn theoretical knowledge into practice;
4. game-based learning will be offered to the participants to experience learning in a more entertaining mode;
5. industry collaboration problem-based learning will propose projects on a selected case of emerging technologies’ applicability;
6. conferences and testimonies from experts and entrepreneurs in the field of impact entrepreneurship will be offered throughout the program. Many of them will take place in the setting of social events so that they will provide opportunities to not only learn from practical insights but also develop students’ networks;
7. visits and internship in collaboration with our partner institutions will provide opportunities not only to apply key concepts covered during the seminars but also to nurture some practical experience;
8. hackathon: participants will be invited to participate in hackathons, which are residential 2-3 days seminars during which they have to come up with innovative entrepreneurial ideas in relation to a given topic;
9. fieldwork will take an important part in the participants’ activities. They will be pushed to work from the field to document their understanding of needs and problems for which impactful solutions could be identified. In that respect the lean start-up methodology will be taught and applied on the field;
10. edition of an “impact entrepreneurship magazine”: participants will be invited to work on the edition of a quarterly online magazine that will document cases, provide interviews, analyses… in relation to impact entrepreneurship;
11. capstone project/master thesis: participants will be required to develop a personal capstone impact entrepreneurship project;
12. group composition and diversity: one very important dimension of our pedagogy relates to As it is often the case in experiential pedagogy, the program will rely a lot on group works. A specificity of the approach pertains to the way groups will be composed. Since the program will recruit candidates with (1) diverse backgrounds as fields of studies and (2) diverse nationalities and gender, we will organize the groups so that they are as mixed as possible in terms of education, gender, and origin;
13. During the Master, students will have the opportunity as part of their courses or their project, to be confronted by juries made of professionals chosen according to their field of expertise;
14. Beside the examinations organized at the end of the teaching terms, many assessment methods also take into account individual and group homework, oral presentations, case studies, continuous participation, debriefing and reflection…. They are adapted to the teaching methods developed in order to achieve the specific course learning objectives and could be very different from one course to the other;
15. During the program, high-profile experts in fields relevant to the program will act as invited scholars/guest lecturers.

 Partners

This innovative and transnational master’s degree in Impact Entrepreneurship is built on the expertise and past experience of three partner institutions:

• Zagreb School of Economics and Management - ZSEM (Croatia): The institution is AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) It is the only university in Croatia that holds 4 out of 5 Palmes of Excellence, ranked the third best business school in Eastern Europe by Eduniversal, and among the 200 best schools in the world for MBA and member of EFMD.
• University of Management and Economics in Vilnius (Lithuania): It is one of the top-ranked business universities in the ISM is the only university in Lithuania that holds 4 out of 5 Palmes of Excellence by Eduniversal. ISM is on track to the prestigious AACSB accreditation4 and is a member of EFMD.
• HEC Liège - Management School, University of Liège (Belgium): It is AACSB and EQUIS accredited. It is the only Business School in Belgium to have been labeled by BSIS (Business School IMPACT System). HEC Liège is also the only Business School member of the Conférence des Grandes Ecoles.