Discover the project website
The ESF project "Values-driven career plan for students: the key to sustainable employment" aims to make students aware of their own choices toward a sustainable career during their college journey.
Values-driven career plan for students
Odisee and Howest are working on a values-driven career plan for students with support from the European Social Fund, Flanders and Europe. Thanks to this track, students are being explored to make more sustainable career choices. After a thorough test project in Howest and Odisee, it will be evaluated whether this service can become valuable for all students.
The project "Value-driven career plan for students: the key to sustainable employment" aims to make students aware of their own choices towards a sustainable career(early) during their career.
Research shows that almost 1 in 2 starting employees is already looking for another job within the year. In addition, own polls within the colleges involved show that the majority of students find the guidance to internship and work insufficiently well handled by the college. There are also huge differences between the fields of study at the universities of applied sciences in the way in which students are prepared to make a good choice for an internship or a later job. The surveys also show that students are not made sufficiently aware that freelancing or developing their own business is also a possibility within a career plan.
With this project, we want to combine digital value applications with the existing expertise on values and context within Howest and Odisee and test them in practice, in order to offer a professional, innovative service.
Read a report of the survey of internship coordinators about a values-driven career plan for students here.
Our partners
Odisee and partner Howest will receive for this project 199,999.99 EUR from the European Social Fund, 199,999.99 EUR from Flanders.
Meet the researchers
Want to know more about this project?
Transfer of business to employees
This project focuses on SMEs whose manager reaches (or has reached) retirement age or is thinking of taking over, the so-called "aging SMEs. We would like to know if the company can offer an option to its own employees to take over the SME, in order to ensure the continuity of the business and the anchoring of local employment.
Objective
The project aimed to develop the following tools for service providers in the Flemish labor market:
- An innovative guidance path for company managers and employees that collectively and qualitatively deals with all aspects of the acquisition. This counseling program for aging SMEs, our final target group, focuses not only on the manager, but also on all or part of the employees. Central to this guidance path was the testing, shaping and working out of the takeover of the SME by its own employees. The aim was that all route counsellors could apply this methodology when it seemed a suitable route for the SME that came to them for guidance.
- An online platform to inform and sensitize the final target group.
Realized output
The results of the research were presented in the Flemish Parliament, on June 13, 2017.
The website that was developed includes numerous information about the project and the partners, a roadmap for the transfer and a business scan.
-
Discover the website.
-
Watch the webinar.
-
Read the final report.
Funded by
Meet the researchers
Want to know more about this project?
LotaBEL
The Aqua-ERF started research on freshwater cod farming in 2009. From these AquaVlan and ERF studies, we gained a lot of knowledge and experience about this fish in its different life stages. The industry itself is looking for new fish species suitable for Belgian aquaculture, with the goal of providing our country with as much of its own consumption fish as possible. The freshwater cod could be a suitable candidate for this. Its low feed conversion and potentially rapid growth as a cold-water species are important assets that have emerged from our studies. Its high scores on taste tests combined with its history as an ingredient of Ghent waterzooi make this fish a culinary recommendation.
To date, potential growers lack real production and market data to start freshwater cod farming. To fill in this gap, Aqua-ERFaims to guide growers in the breeding and production of freshwater cod.
Aqua-ERF will provide fry and know-how to growers who participate in the project. Growers will be supervised and the rearing to market weight will be followed up by Aqua-ERF. In collaboration with KU Leuven, derived products will be created and tried out by a taste panel. This product diversification should lead to increasing the market potential of farmed freshwater cod. Fish sales and consumer appreciation will also be analyzed during the project.
The research line around larval rearing on the Aqua-ERF will also be continued in this project. By optimizing the weaning protocol, Aqua-ERF aims not only to increase the fry production, but also to guarantee a stable and quality production of fry to the industry.
The follow-up of the complete rearing of freshwater cod and related studies should provide a clear overview of the different aspects (consumer appreciation, production parameters, profitability ...) that determine the feasibility of commercial farming.
Based on the research results, a profitability study will be conducted. This should become a backbone for potential farmers, with which we want to pave the way for the full-fledged commercial farming of freshwater cod in Belgium.
Meet the researchers
Want to know more about this project?
Entrepreneurship and the self-employed in the Brussels-Capital Region
This study provides an overview of entrepreneurship in the Brussels Capital Region.
Our partners
Study Center for Entrepreneurship and Family Businesses (SVO) - KU Leuven
Meet the researchers
Want to know more about this project?
Entrepreneurship after setbacks or bankruptcy
This project looks at the potential impact of bankruptcy on the person of the ex-entrepreneur. Does that bankruptcy affect his or her further options? Does a bankrupt choose to restart as an entrepreneur? And what factors play a role in that decision?
Entrepreneurship is a process of trial and error. It is therefore part of the natural course of events that businesses disappear at some point and make way for new activities. What is often lost sight of, however, is the position of the entrepreneur as a person in that process, and more specifically the question of what his further professional options are. In this study, we examine how a bankrupt ex-entrepreneur continues his professional life after the cessation of his original business.
In addition to a literature review, online questionnaires are administered to bankrupts and the results are processed.
Our partners
SVO i.o.v. Dyzo
Meet the researchers
Want to know more about this project?
LogILereN
The Logistics Interactive Learning Network (LogILereN) consists of a select group of logistics experts who sit around the table bi-monthly to share hands-on experience and scientific findings. The goal of this service project? Coming up with innovative logistics solutions for your business.
Participants choose the topics they want to cover and share with each other obstacles encountered, pitfalls, solutions and alternatives. An Odisee researcher acts as moderator to support the focus discussion with scientific findings. Each discussion session takes place at one of the participating companies and concludes with a company visit.
Do you have any questions about regarding the logistical operation within your company?
Are you curious how others approach a certain problem?
Would you like to take a look at the logistics in another company?
Are you looking for professional advice?
The Logistics Interactive Learning Network (LogILereN) consists of a select group of logistics experts who meet every two months to share practical experience and scientific findings. The target? Come up with innovative logistics solutions for your company.
Participants choose the themes they want to discuss and share the obstacles, pitfalls, solutions and alternatives they encounter. A researcher from University College Odisee acts as a moderator to support the focus discussion with scientific findings. Every conversation session takes place at one of the participating companies and is concluded with a company visit.
Our partners
- Go&LearNET
- European Commission LifeLong Learning Programme - Education and Training
Meet the researchers
Want to know more about this project?
The determinants of long-lived family businesses are being investigated. The results will culminate in a research paper.
Want to know more about this project?
Customer-driven idea generation for product innovation among SMEs
In this project, we explore how digital platforms can contribute to customer-driven innovation among SMEs.
We also aim at further online interaction between SMEs and consumers, to concretize and elaborate the ideas. In parallel with this research, a trial platform is being developed so that the elements essential to the success of an ideas platform can be explored. It also looks at how to give the platform a long-term sustainable life.
Meet the researchers
Want to know more about this project?
International Summer School Sustainable Management
Through this service project, trainings are organized that bring together international students, business managers and NGO executives to promote their sustainable thinking, increase their awareness of sustainable business opportunities and provide them with knowledge and skills to translate sustainable ideas into relevant and viable business initiatives.
The Summer School combines guest lectures, case studies, company visits and social activities on various sustainability cases. The three cases of this edition (2021) will cover the topics of sustainable finance, sustainable HRM and sustainable business. The working language of the Summer School is English. Various teams of international business managers, NGO managers and students will formulate sustainable solutions and advice for the business cases.
Expected output
To encourage innovative, sustainable solutions, participants will receive expert courses and workshops on topics such as CSR, natural resources, sustainable food and logistics, consumer behavior, creative communication, systems thinking, strategic thinking, forward thinking, value-oriented thinking, etc.
Our partners
- KU Leuven FEB
- HoGent
- Rosto Solidario