The Tango between the Academic and Business Sectors: Use of Co-Management Approach for the Development of Green Innovation
Innovation and Green Development 2023
Antra Kalnbaļķīte, Vita Brakovska, Viktorija Terjaņika, Jeļena Pubule, Dagnija Blumberga

This study explores a co-management approach to prepare future environmental engineers for green innovation and commercialisation by improving cooperation between academia and industry. Collaboration between academia, government, agencies, and industry is a top priority due to the significant impact of the availability of qualified environmental professionals on the economy. The potential for collaboration among parties with different interests and principles remains largely unexplored. Compared to tango dance, the paper discusses the co-management approach, combining two disciplines with other goals and expectations. The methodology adapts brainstorming for studying environmental engineering to improve students' competencies and diversify study methods. Studying classical idea co-creation approaches in higher education, evaluating their results, and analysing stakeholders’ opinions - involving 65 students, six industry and government representatives, and 14 lecturers. This study identified crucial factors that form a model for successful collaboration between academia and industry to train environmental science specialists and develop green innovations. These factors include party participation activity, the definition of primary evaluation criterion, and student motivation. The study concludes that the co-management approach could enhance competence education quality by promoting skill diversification and teamwork and providing greater motivation to work.


Keywords
Co-management approach; Green innovation; Competencies; Higher education; Knowledge-based education
DOI
10.1016/j.igd.2023.100073
Hyperlink
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2949753123000413?via%3Dihub

Kalnbaļķīte, A., Brakovska, V., Terjaņika, V., Pubule, J., Blumberga, D. The Tango between the Academic and Business Sectors: Use of Co-Management Approach for the Development of Green Innovation. Innovation and Green Development, 2023, Vol. 2, No. 4, Article number 100073. ISSN 2949-7531. Pieejams: doi:10.1016/j.igd.2023.100073

Publication language
English (en)
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