Dual-career opportunities and entrepreneurial learning:
An introduction to the ENDURANCE training curricula
Links between sports & entrepreneurship are manifold, yet seldom recognized and rarely capitalized upon. The two are rarely found together in VET as effectively connected domains with synergic links: hence the need for much-needed entrepreneurial competences due to low EE in sports-oriented disciplines and lack of tailored entrepreneurship training.
ENDURANCE, an international project co-financed by the E+ programme of the European Commission, “rethinks” the teaching and learning of entrepreneurship based on the complementarities and commonalities between sport and entrepreneurship, such as determination, perseverance, self-confidence, stamina, respect of rules, team play, self-reliance, competition, success/failure, etc.
Throughout its first year of implementation, project partners – 8 organisations from 7 countries, all representatives of the multifaced areas of interest intercepted by the project, i.e., employability, academia, private sector, civil society – carried out at national and transnational level and in-depth assessment of concrete training needs / opportunity, case studies and good practices to support dual-career developed programmes for former / student athletes.
Results and findings stemming from this evaluation are available for free and in multilanguage version via the official OER Platform of the project under the Mapping section.
The wealth of knowledge consolidated by partners during this specific cycle of implementation was instrumental to inform outline, structure and content of the ENDURANCE training curricula. Learning outcomes are designed to sustain the acquisition form learners and targets of key essentials of entrepreneurial leaning and business management
| The ENDURANCE training curricula | |
| Module | Topic |
| how to harness innovation in sports to business? | Athletes often have to be innovative, both in training and in competition. Innovation skills are an important part of sports. The same skills are a vital part of business, when planning your business and thinking about competitive advantage…. |
| The essentials of Project Management for aspiring sport entrepreneur | In the context of this training module, learners will have the opportunity to familiarise with the very essentials of Project Management (PM). PM is among the most liquid and transversal business functions, it embraces a wide range of activities, capability and strategic priorities for business competitiveness and excellence |
| Management and self-leadership | Nowadays, entrepreneurship and being an entrepreneur is something which may be considered a global phenomenon. The way that entrepreneurs engage with passion in the creation of a particular business venture is something worthy of all types of studies and researches. |
| A comprehensive introduction to Marketing | The content of this module is designed to facilitate targets’ introduction to topics and terminology that are widely common in established Marketing’s theory and practice |
| Digital skills | This course offers a training path on how to use digital skills to enhance your entrepreneurial spirit as a business sportsman. |
| Finance and Economics | This module includes basic concepts and calculations that need to be mastered to understand the field of finance and economics. When thinking about starting their own business and making a decision, athletes need to know certain financial fundamentals |
| Branding | In this course, learner will go through and learn the entire branding process, from how companies choose their brands, measure their effectiveness, and what strategies they use to keep a brand successful in today’s marketplace |
| Setting up a business | This module covers some of the most important aspects related to setting up a business out of a sports background |
Modules and training content has been tested in pilot version by partners with a total cohort of nearly 750 people (University students, fresh graduates, entrepreneurs-to-be, professionals and trainers, representatives of the entrepreneurship support network representatives, etc.
Feedbacks and impressions from participants have been collected by all partners after each of the piloting session for fine-tuning actions and other recommended integrations. Final satisfaction feedbacks gathered by the training staff of the organisations confirm the pedagogical reliability and great satisfaction of targets with the accuracy and ease of use of training material.
The analysis of comments and impression from participants are instrumental to inform the completion and consolidation of the last two project deliverables: Guidelines for Uptake and ENDURANCE Green Paper, two manuals conceived to ease the replicability, scalability and multiplier effect of the project in both ecosystems of practice and policy respectively.
To know more about the project please feel free to consult: www.enduranceproject.eu
