A practitioner handbook, a policy manifesto and a sustainability framework are now online — openly licensed, free to adapt, and addressed to universities, incubators, training providers and policymakers across Europe.
The Start Cup Academy consortium has published the three final results of its Erasmus+ Cooperation Partnership, closing a 30-month programme aimed at a specific problem: capable students with good ideas were not reaching the start-up competitions — the Start Cups — that could launch them. Research across seven countries found these competitions dominated by teams who already have entrepreneurial networks, while students with a strong idea and no contacts rarely apply at all.
The answer was a complete, validated preparation pathway: eight micro-credential training modules at EQF levels 3–5, available in seven languages through the open-access Start Cup Academy Digital Warehouse and tested with more than 180 learners. The three documents published today explain how any organisation can use that work — and what policymakers could change to make it easier.
| Result | What it offers | Who it is for |
| Mainstreaming Strategy Guidelines for practitioners | Adoption pathways, a ten-step implementation guide, delivery methods, a competence validation model and lessons from the pilot | Universities, incubators and start-up training providers |
| Manifesto Policy recommendations | Evidence from seven national contexts and ten recommendations on entrepreneurial learning, micro-credentials, educator capacity and territorial equity | EU institutions, ministries, regional authorities, funders, HEI leadership |
| Mobility A sustainable framework | Measures for keeping the results available and for adopting, adapting and replicating them; how to identify accessible Start Cups | Project partners, new adopters and ecosystem stakeholders |
All three are published as Open Educational Resources under a Creative Commons licence — free to download, use, reuse, adapt and share, provided the source is acknowledged. Full texts are in English, with executive summaries in Bulgarian, Croatian, Italian, Latvian, Spanish and Ukrainian, and can be downloaded from the WP5 results page at www.startcupacademy.eu/manifesto.php?lang=EN .
About Start Cup Academy
Start Cup Academy is an Erasmus+ KA220-HED Cooperation Partnership (2023-1-LV01-KA220-HED-000160254), running from April 2024 to September 2026 and coordinated by RISEBA University of Applied Sciences (LV) with Burgas Free University (BG), Associazione Innovalley and IDP (IT), IHF (BE), the University of Dubrovnik (HR), Internet Web Solutions (ES) and the University of Customs and Finance (UA). It has produced an analysis of entrepreneurship education in seven countries, a multilingual curriculum, an open e-learning platform and the three results published now.
Resources and media enquiries
WP5 results: www.startcupacademy.eu/manifesto.php?lang=EN
Project website and Digital Warehouse: www.startcupacademy.eu
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