Disonancias

Activity

Mondragon Goi Eskola Politeknikoa, “Jose María Arizmendiarrieta” S. COOP. (henceforth MGEP-MU), located in Mondragon (Guipuzcoa), is a non-profit making cooperative dedicated entirely to teaching, and declared to be a public utility. It is the legal owner of the Higher Polytechnic School of Mondragon University and its main activities are training, research and Technology Transfer to companies and other public or private bodies.

Mondragon Goi Eskola Politeknikoa is, therefore, a private non-profit making university.

MGEP-MU’s teaching activity began in 1943 and, since that time, it has not ceased to grow, whilst it has also promoted the creation of numerous innovative business experiences. MGEP-MU takes its entrepreneurial vocation seriously, as its mission statement makes clear: “... it takes on a commitment to transform society, contributing to its humanistic, technological and economic progress, fundamentally through the development of the company...”.

In 1968 MGEP-MU obtained official recognition from the School of Technical Engineering and in 1997, with two other university centres, ETEO and Irakasle Eskola, it set up the Mondragon University. Over recent years, it has exerted great efforts in the development of research, taking in basic oriented investigation, applied investigation and business investigation. In this endeavour, research has been articulated along concrete lines of action developed in collaboration with other Universities, Research Centres and R+D business units.

MGEP-MU’s R+D budget has experienced increasing growth over recent years, rising from a million euros during 1997-98, to 9 million euros in 2006-07 (see graph in attached document).

More than 40% of the financing for R+D activity during 2005/2006 came from companies, confirming the powerful business vocation that drives its research activity. The cooperative also participates in the European Union’s R+D programmes (see table in attached document), and collaborates with foreign universities, specifically, in projects of cross-border cooperation, mobility of students and teachers, joint organisation of activities of dissemination, etc.

As regards significant projects, it is to be noted that MGEP-MU participates in 8 CENIT projects (amongst them, an urban solid waste technology observatory, technologies for deep water offshore wind farms, intelligent transport, etc.: see complete list in attached document), and takes part in 3 strategic singular Ministry of Education and Science projects: Micromanufacturing, Lightcarboncars, and Furia (Future Audiovisual Integrated Network). It is, moreover, the only University in the Spanish State to lead two of them.

This activity is expressed in research teams that work in five scientific-technological areas: information and communication technologies, advanced material transformation processes, energy, business management, and innovation and product improvement.

R+TD activity at MGEP-MU has a dual objective: on the one hand, to contribute to entrepreneurial development through knowledge transfer based on joint participation in applied research and business innovation, and, on the other, to give a boost to innovation within the teaching profession, aiding the full development of educational provision. Consequently, during 2005/2006 the number of company professionals attending continuous training courses given by MGEP-MU was over 2,500.

Department within whose framework the investigation will be carried out, and the team involved

Within MGEP, the project will be developed via the team called “Innovation and Entrepreneurship”, whose mission consists of:
- preparing engineers and experts to be enterprising, committed and responsible towards people, the environment and Social Development;
- investigating and discovering to contribute to the definition and setting up of excellent innovation projects within the fields of: innovative culture, innovation strategy, innovation processes and systems, and business models, both within the field of technology and in social areas;
- contributing to the development of entrepreneurship.

Its vision consists of being a driven team that is a reference for innovation and entrepreneurship in Europe, and it is comprised of 9 people. They work out of a laboratory for innovation and entrepreneurship, and from a space (of creativity) with software, simulators, didactic games, and multimedia material.

Their customers may be pupils from different businesses, or companies, other MGEP departments, Saiolan, MCC Promotion Centre, MCC science and technology plan, Regional Councils (Gipuzkoa / Bizkaia), and key MCC companies (Fagor, Ulma, etc).

This team is a reference point in Europe because of the following features:
- 9 individuals working full-time in “a few” areas associated with innovation and entrepreneurship;
- an international congress that is of note on a European scale;
- continuous collaboration with the 10 companies of reference in Europe;
- on average, 2 first class publications a year;
- on average, 1 European project a year;
- a team working with companies of excellence in innovation;
- 10 “pupils” who undertake successful new businesses a year;
- the team participates in the development of science and technology plans in the Basque Country/ European Union;
- the Disonancias project.

The team-s web page is:
http://www.mondragon.edu/eps/investigacion/lineas-de-investigacion-1/modelos-organizativos-e-innovacion-tecnologica/modelos-organizativos-e-innovacion-tecnologica

Investigation to be undertaken within the DISONANCIAS framework

Designing an “environment” where activities are promoted that are geared towards the development of the creative, innovative and enterprising capacity of engineering students, teachers and business professionals

The results which are intended to be achieved with the project are:

 Results in terms of teachers:
– In the short term (08-09): to become acquainted with / develop processes, techniques, tools,… in order to acquire competences in creativity and entrepreneurship.
– In the medium term (2010): to innovate within the teaching – learning and company transfer process so as to improve effectiveness in entrepreneurship.

 Results in terms of investigators:
– In the short term: to become acquainted with / develop processes, techniques, tools,… in order to use the “frontiers” between different research lines so as to undertake new activities.
– In the medium term: that each line of research undertakes at least one new activity a year (via the “classroom”).

 Results in terms of pupils:
– In the short term: participation in the setting up of an “environment”.
– In the medium term: that a group of four or five pupils undertakes new activities every year.

 Results in terms of companies and i+d units (within the framework of the Entrepreneurship System):
– In the short term: participation in the constitution of an “environment”.
– In the medium term: provision of services to companies that participate in the “environment”, and that it can be transferred to their business contexts.

Type of exploitation of result

Option A.

Location and web page

Arrasate-Mondragón (Gipuzkoa). www.mondragon.edu/eps

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