Business Education for Sustainability: Teaching Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Entrepreneurship for Sustainable Local and Regional Development (BEST) 

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BEST stands for Business Education for Sustainability – an international project that promotes and educates corporate social responsibility and social entrepreneurship for youths. In the framework of this project many trainings were organized as well as International Academy “Business education and sustainability in which tested modules for trainings in social entrepreneurship”.

The concept of the BEST project received the highest evaluation from the formed commission of experts of the National Agency for Erasmus + – Center for Human Resources Development and was the first project funded in Bulgaria under the program under key activity 2, sector “Higher education ”.
One year after the start of the project, already in the process of its implementation, it was awarded with a mark of quality, as an initiative that forms important results and effects in the direction of sustainable development.

Duration of the project:
01.09.2014 – 31.08.2017
What is BEST?

Project BEST encourages cooperation and good practices exchange between organizations from 7 countries (Bulgaria, Greece, Litva, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom) aiming to heighten the quality and adequacy of education in the field of social entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility, as well as to encourage social innovations and promote the social role of business. 

Aims:

The specific project goals were as follows: 

  • To support scientific research and exchange of good practices in the field of social entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility for encouraging sustainable regional and local development.
  • To initiate an exchange between business/economic research and research for sustainable development, in order to develop innovative education programs, which include social entrepreneurship subjects and KSO in economics and entrepreneurship education.
  • To develop a procedure for validating competence, which allows the business to acknowledge the skills of volunteers, participating in the KSO initiatives.
  • To create an integrated program containing demonstrational initiatives, training of teachers and pilot digital platform for education on KSO and social entrepreneurship.  
  • To contribute for the encouragement of social entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility amongst business, the society, the media and educational institutions. 
Partners:
  • International School of Law and Business, Lithuania
  • Utena College, Lithuania
  • International Institute for Vocational Training INDICO, Spain
  • Portuguese Society for Innovation
  • Braganca Polytechnic Institute, Portugal
  • Izmir University of Economics, Turkey
  • University College Birmingham, UK
  • Birmingham City University, United Kingdom
  • University of Thessaly, Greece

Project 2014-1-BG01-КА200-001694, “Erasmus +” Program, Strategic Partnerships in the field of higher education