Ignacio De Los Rios-Carmenado

By Ricardo Stratta Fernández, Ignacio de los Ríos Carmenado and Miriam López González

This chapter provides the foundations for a new approach in competence development for rural development project management, involving the role of higher education in the solution of real-life problems. This experience took place in senior courses at La Plata University and included the participation of students from this university. The research was carried out in Punta Indio, which is affected by rural depopulation, as are the rest of the territories inside the Buenos Aires Province. The process is developed through project-based learning (PBL) and the basis of the working with people (WWP) model, involving project management competencies according to the International Project Management Association (IPMA) standards. In the formation of local action groups (LAGs,) elements from the LEADER (Liaisons Entre Activités de Developement de l’Economie Rural) rural development model—applied in the rural territories inside the EU—were taken into account.

Part of the book: International Development

By Juan Pablo Salgado Guerrero, Ignacio de los Ríos Carmenado and Miriam López González

In the engineering education field, there is an identified need of innovative learning and teaching methods to improve students’ entrepreneurship competencies in order to make connections between engineering and real society. This chapter addresses a management strategy for entrepreneurship projects in the university framework. It is the result of a cooperative experience from the Research Groups of Salesian Polytechnic University (UPS), the Technical University of Madrid (UPM), and the collaboration of other external entities. The management strategy is applied to undergraduate and postgraduate programs at UPS and has been called Coworking StartUPS Project. The research method is made up of different teaching methodologies—project‐based learning, coworking, case studies—and different activities in and out of the university. The data were collected from students who were enrolled in the Coworking StartUPS Project, along with students and researchers from the three University Branch Campuses in the cities of Cuenca, Quito, and Guayaquil. The Coworking StartUPS Project links teaching & research activities with entrepreneurship are founded in cooperation and interaction, offering multiple possibilities for entrepreneurial skills development in the international context. This preprofessional experience promotes students to integrate the knowledge they have learnt and apply the new knowledge in an entrepreneurship project.

Part of the book: Case Study of Innovative Projects