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The COnnecting and DEvelopment of UNiversity-oriented InnovaTion Ecosystems through entrepreneurship eDucation (CODEUNITED) project, coordinated by Aalto University, features four other higher education institutions (EDHEC Business School, Brunel University of London, LAB University of Applied Sciences, KTH Royal Institute of Technology), three business/industry partners (MAZE IMPACT, S.A, West London Business, and Cogknit Oy), spanning across a total of five European countries: Finland, France, Portugal, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

A More Holistic Approach to Entrepreneurship Education

The goal of the project is to create a more holistic approach to entrepreneurship education across partner universities. Today, the university innovation ecosystem includes various actors supporting entrepreneurship, but lacks clarity and collaboration, leading to replication, internal competition, and a disconnect from student activities. With CODEUNITED, the view is that entrepreneurial education can play a key role in uniting these players and bridging the gap between students and campus ecosystems through new, inclusive educational offerings at all levels.

At Aalto, this project will be led by the Entrepreneurship Unit at the School of Business (ENTU), with Ewald Kibler serving as the PI, and Zoltan Javor and Apurva Ganoo serving as the project manager and coordinator respectively. The project will also include active participation from the Schools of Engineering (Aalto Design Factory) and Science (Department of Industrial Engineering and Management) as well as the Aalto Innovation Ecosystem Services. The project will also receive support from associated partners Ikigaia Oy, Pääomasijoittajat ry (Finnish Venture Capital Association), and Vaasa University of Applied Sciences.

“Create new educational activities that better connect our students with the vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem.”

‘We believe that this project will help develop new competences in supporting innovation and entrepreneurship across our respective campuses, and especially for us at Aalto, to create and pilot new educational activities that better connect our students with the vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem that surrounds us,’ says Ewald Kibler, the PI of CODEUNITED. Continuing in a similar vein, Apurva adds that the ‘exciting aspects of this upcoming project are 1) the ability for us to benchmark and learn from innovation processes at some of the best universities in Europe, and 2) reflecting and introspecting by taking a ‘birds-eye’ view and spending some time to properly map out the ecosystem activities.’

Over the next 25 months, the CODEUNITED consortium has committed towards various ambitious KPIs such as: supporting 28 startups/scale-ups, training 1250 students with additional mentoring for 125 more students, training 250 academic and non-academic staff members with additional mentoring for 90 staff members, establishing 14 new partnerships, 3 new Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) applications, and supporting the creation of at least 3 new startups.

Building on Previous Successes

CODEUNITED builds on experiences gained in two previous successful EIT-HEI Initiative projects coordinated and led by Aalto University, C-ACCELERATE and INCREDIT. 

was designed to accelerate the role of creative communities through the exploration of entrepreneurial education and radical creativity within European education by combining the entrepreneurial expertise at Aalto University with the creative educational practices of the FilmEU European University Alliance. Through C-ACCELERATE, over 1200 students were trained and mentored in entrepreneurship education, more than 400 staff members were trained and mentored, and 9 startups/scale-ups were supported through innovative practices like partnering students with early stage startups (read more at: ) along with countless knowledge sharing activities pertaining to educational and commercialization processes across the partner universities.

, or Interdisciplinary Creative Education in Deep Tech, aimed to increase the innovation and entrepreneurial capacity of the consortium by supporting EIT HEI Initiative’s Deep Tech Talent Initiative through an interdisciplinary approach, adopting practice-based collaboration, exploring life-wide learning opportunities and a well-networked and integrated ecosystem. Through this project, over 1800 students were trained and mentored in deep-tech and entrepreneurial topics, and more than 2000 staff members were trained and mentored in topics like cybersecurity, utilizing AI in educational activities, and commercialization processes. 

Additionally, seven startups were also supported through this project. Reflecting on this project, Prof. Tua Björklund, Director of Aalto Design Factory and PI of INCREDIT shared: ‘The project provided us with valuable takeaways in terms of supporting the entrepreneurial ambitions of our students, building deep tech competences for our non-STEAM students and training academic and non-academic staff to better support these journeys. We're excited to take these learning to the innovation ecosystem level in CODEUNITED.’

Looking Forward

Building upon the learnings from C-ACCELERATE and INCREDIT, both of which served as valuable educational pilots and validation for beginning the ecosystem level collaborations, the plan with CODEUNITED is to extend this further. In practice, this means supporting various entrepreneurial and educational initiatives, including complementing them with real-life contexts and practices. The consortium sees education playing a key role in bridging the gap between students and campus ecosystems, and the project will identify further opportunities for courses that provide students with the competences to support entrepreneurship and research commercialization activities on campus. Lastly, by adopting a resourceful approach, CODEUNITED aims to leverage existing ecosystem driven initiatives within the project before pursuing new developments, ensuring efficient resource use, avoiding unnecessary duplication, and addressing unmet needs with novel practices.

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