British Council Creative Spark Application - Ukraine

The creative industry is rapidly expanding in the UK and developing countries like Ukraine, acting as a significant driver for economic growth, competitiveness, and employment. However, individuals within this sector often face difficulties in developing innovative ideas and transforming them into successful businesses. The 1st partnership project, SEED, designed to address these challenges by providing relevant training and support to foster entrepreneurial skills. It aimed to establish a Centre of the Creative Entrepreneurship Development (CCED) at the Ukrainian Engineering Pedagogics Academy (UEPA) with focus on three core areas: skills development for students and young creative entrepreneurs, supporting new business activation and incubation, and facilitating knowledge exchange between the partner institutions. The Centre implemented three main types of activities: comprehensive training programs, business support and consulting services, and an annual roadshow featuring a competition for the best entrepreneurial ideas. The 2nd project, CCE, aimed to develop entrepreneurial skills of HE students, graduates, and young entrepreneurs, support new business activation and incubation, and transfer knowledge. Priority Areas: Embedding entrepreneurial education in new and existing curriculum/models and supporting the service delivery of the established CCED; Capacity development and business integration for targeted beneficiaries. Based on the experience and success of establishing a Centre of the Creative Entrepreneurship Development (CCED) in UEPA, the proposal aimed to establish an another CCED in the new partner university Kharkiv National University of Economics (KhNUE). Valuable experience in creating and embedding new curriculum and models and adapting the concept of gamification in enterprise education gained over the past years were further utilized in both UEPA and KhNUE. The training programs wiere delivered face-to-face and online, targeting diverse groups such as students in economic, managerial, and creative specialities (with advanced European-oriented business planning and elements of creative entrepreneurship), unemployed individuals, internally displaced persons, and socially unprotected groups. The goal is to stimulate business idea generation and cultivate creative thinking.The project is expected to significantly boost creative entrepreneurship and self-employment in the creative industries within Eastern Ukraine. In the long run, CCED aims to increase the number of start-up creative enterprises, generate new jobs, enhance the competitiveness of the creative industry, and establish a sustainable ecosystem for youth entrepreneurship in the Kharkiv Region.