A Partners’ Meeting within the project “Fostering university-enterprise cooperation and entrepreneurship of students via SMART Caffes (SMART)” started today at Varna University of Management. The event will last 3 days, during which senior academics from partner universities in Bulgaria, Greece, Belgium, Moldova and Armenia will report on the implemented activities and will discuss the remaining steps until the finalization of the project in October 2021.

The SMART Project aims at strengthening the resources of Higher Education Entities in Eastern European countries Armenia, Moldova and Belarus. The first phase of the project was dedicated to identifying good practices existing in the member countries of the EU (Spain, Greece, Bulgaria, Germany and Belgium). At the same time, the entities of the Eastern countries managed the acquisition of technical and real estate resources for the SMART CAFFES that will be launched in the aforementioned countries. As a result of the analysis made, a series of training courses were conducted, given by experts from the EU Universities partnering in the project, which are taught to students, professors and professionals related to the topics identified in the good practices. In May 2019, representatives of the senior faculty and staff members from renowned universities in Yerevan, Gavar, Minsk, Gomel, Chisinau and Beltsy took an intensive course at Varna University of Management focused on topics such as time management, conflict management and creative problem solving.

During the 3-day Meeting in Varna the Partners will also discuss the benefits (institutional, national, regional, etc.) of the project’s activities so far, a Project Sustainability Strategy, the inclusion of SMART Caffes in the academic curricula of universities, the establishment of cooperation with business and governments and other topics relevant to the implementation of the project.

More about SMART Project can be found on the project website.

“Fostering university-enterprise cooperation and entrepreneurship of students via SMART Caffes (SMART)” is implemented under Key Action 2 of the Erasmus+ Programme “Capacity building in the field of higher education”.