Playful Learning in Next Generation Entrepreneurship

The G4C:NGE project aims to teach entrepreneurial skills as part of an international study programme focusing on Next Generation Entrepreneurship at five European higher education business institutions. This will give students in the field of entrepreneurship the opportunity to develop and implement sustainable business models and to discuss them together in an international team. In addition, an international study programme will be developed that enables teachers to create gamified teaching and learning scenarios. The focus of the project, which will run from 01.11.2022 to 31.10.2025, is thus on promoting gamification in business and education.

It is assumed that new rules of play are necessary in a networked, digitalised economy and society: Only those who think and act playfully will become flexible, innovative and fit for the future. Playfulness is becoming a success factor for companies, especially in the areas of innovation, leadership, human resources, new work and corporate culture.

The G4C:NGE project picks up on this trend and establishes the study programme Next Generation Entrepreneurship, which prepares today’s students for the entrepreneurial challenges of tomorrow. In this way, students acquire key competences (future work skills) for their later professional life.

Furthermore, teachers, the secondary target group in this project, are not only equipped with new knowledge about game-based learning and teaching scenarios, but also enabled to develop corresponding teaching concepts for classroom teaching. Teachers are developed into change agents within their institution. Through exchange with colleagues from other European institutions, they will also participate in the development of game-based leadership concepts at their university. Building on these project experiences, a set of guidelines will also be developed. The guidelines will be designed as a practical tool to support institutions in the process of gamified course modules in their programmes. An open access online platform will provide the methodologies, toolkits and training for the use of gamification in different areas of business education in the European context.

The Erasmus+ funded project is coordinated by the Center for Open Digital Innovation and Participation (CODIP) at Dresden University of Technology (Germany). Other partner universities involved in the project are UC Leuven-Limburg (Belgium), DOBA Maribor (Slovenia), Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences – RUAS (Netherlands), Dresden University of Applied Sciences (Germany), Akademia WBS (Poland) and BUSINET – European Network for Higher Education Business Institutions – (Belgium).

The kick-off meeting on 15^th and 16^th December 2022 at the FHD in Dresden marked the beginning of the project.

For example, initial work began on the concept development for the teacher qualification, which will take place as an online bootcamp in the first half of 2023. In addition, initial preparations were made for the curriculum concept of the gamified entrepreneurship study programme.