<< Background >>Thriving in the new EU economy poses imminent challenges for entrepreneurs worldwide. Dealing with exponentially growing stocks of digital start-ups (and not only) that fast-pace innovation at unimaginable speeds, entrepreneurs are not faced anymore just with a financial consideration dilemma when receiving or asking for investment. Fast paced innovations are good and needed worldwide indeed and the global start-up ecosystems are exceeding all expectations to this end. But this is not enough. As the entire world is moving towards a more sustainable & fairer business & social ecosystem, so should entrepreneurs (EU Commission, 2021, GIIN, 2020) otherwise they risk not being able to reach investment. To this end, the concept of impact investment appeared (investment in startups that produce environmental and social benefits) and it is gaining a big momentum un the startup scene (IRIS, 2020). As startups are the becoming the backbone of the EU economy in terms of employment and innovation (EUROSTAT, 2020), a massive attention should be set on developing impact investment capabilities into the next generation entrepreneurs. Furthermore, as university spin-offs and graduate-led startups are the hold the biggest propotion of share in the EU market (67.8% - EUROSTART, 2020), entrepreneurship education at the higher education level should therefore include impact investment as key competence for their students. Nevertheless, according to an initial entrepreneurship programme benchmark in countries involved in ARIEES (and specifically for Eastern Europe), less than 5% (out of 134) of the entrepreneurship courses (benchmarked by the consortium in the preparation phase) at the undergraduate and post-graduate level offer impact investment strategies. On top of this, the wider discussion governing the educational sector worldwide for the past year resides in the rapid digital transformation in online education gap induced by COVID-19 (OECD, 2021, EPALE, 2020). Lecturers (i.e. higher education) or trainers (i.e. adult education) should possess the full range of digital competences facilitated by the DigCompEdu framework. In this context, ARIEES will meet the following needs of the main target groups (primary: university lecturers in entrepreneurship, secondary: adult trainers on entrepreneurship): Target group skill gap related to impact investment (SG-Impact): startup business model transformation to enable environmental and social impacts, motivating students/prospective entrepreneurs to shape their startups towards impact investment, inability to devise impact measurement indicators for different stages (early stage, pre-seed, post-seed, exit), impact investor engagement strategies, impact investment pitching strategies, bridging public and private impact investors, sources of private investment, networking (online and offline) with impact investors. Target group skill gap related to digital education delivery (SG-Digital): limited expertise with delivering digital education that would enabling a supportive virtual class environment; limited digital skills to support the curriculum transformation process; inability to incorporate forward-looking digital solutions to support teaching; lack of skills for co-sharing resources and jointly developing high quality universal Open Educational Resource with other lecturers internationally; inability to reach social groups at risk and gender-balance by delivering personalized online education; inability to properly embed creative thinking (especially for entrepreneurship education) in a digital setting.<< Objectives >>The objective of ARIEES are to help universities (and potentially adult training centres) to improve 1) their entrepreneurship courses by infusing impact investment know-how and 2) to upgrade the digital competences of lecturers/trainers to ensure that the impact investment knowledge can be properly infused into the learners while 3) certifying competences and boosting the quality of entrepreneurship trainers. This will be done by developing: •Result 1 – Acquiring responsible & impactful investment cours•Result 2 – Webinars as pilots for the course (for students, startups and investors)•Result 3 – Train the trainers webinars with digital education pedagogical innovations •Result 4 – Digital micro-credential system development (based on EntreComp/DigComp) •Result 5 – Networking platform: Impact investment HubThis will help ARIEES achieve the following priorities:Priority 1 - HE: Supporting digital capabilities of the higher education sectorPriority 2 - HORIZONTAL: Environment and fight against climate changePriority 3 - HE: Rewarding excellence in learning, teaching and skills development<< Implementation >>The following activities will be implemented: A1-Management - Constant Management & Administration (A2 - Periodic formal reporting and A3 - Periodic informal reporting)Result 1 - Task 1.1 - Content development Result 1 - Task 1.2 - Training Materials Peer-reviewResult 1 - Task 1.3 - Partners to adjust training materialsResult 1 - Task 1.4 - Materials update after the webinars Result 1 - Task 1.5 - Content embedment in existing curricula Result 2 - Task 2.1 -Webinar content adaptation from Result 1 Result 2 - Task 2.2 - Webinar content testing Result 2 - Task 2.3 - Webinar deliveryResult 3 - Task 3.1 -Webinar content development Result 3 - Task 3.2 - Webinar content testing Result 3 - Task 3.3 - Webinar deliveryResult 4 - Task 4.1 - Certification framework & center development Result 4 - Task 4.2 - Certification assessment development Result 4 - Task 4.3 - Certification center launch Result 4 - Task 4.4 - Certification pilots Result 5 - Task 5.1 - Platform requirements analysis Result 5 - Task 5.2 - Platform development and techical testing Result 5 - Task 5.3 - Platform piloting Result 5 - Task 5.4 - Platform improvement and deployment Quality assurance: QA - Evaluation plan and QA - MonitoringDissemination activities: Dissemination plan, Dissemination outputs (website, social media, logos, templates), Dissemination activities (newsletters, press releases, communications), Dissemination - translation activities, Dissemination - exploitation & sustainability plan Multiplier events: E1, E2, E3Project meetings: Five meetings.<< Results >>The following results and outcomes are envisioned: Result 1 – Acquiring responsible & impactful investment course - led by UOL*Specialized CUs based on EntreCompResult 2 – Webinars as pilots for the course (for students, startups and investors)WEBINAR 1 - Impact investment in cleantech and sustainable startups WEBINAR 2 - Impact investment in deep tech ICT (artificial Intelligence) StartupsWEBINAR 3 - Impact investment in cultural and creative startups WEBINAR 4 - Impact investment & startup business model transformation WEBINAR 5 - Engaging private impact investors for your startup WEBINAR 6 - Engaging public impact investors for your startup Result 3 – Train the trainers webinars with digital education pedagogical innovations WEBINAR 1 - How to develop high quality OERs in entrepreneurship education ? WEBINAR 2 - Engagement and motivation of entrepreneurship learners via neuroscience approaches WEBINAR 3 - Fostering an inclusive and personalized digital entrepreneurship education Result 4 – Digital micro-credential system development (based on EntreComp/DigComp) -Micro-credential 1: EntreComp certification on teaching impact investment-infused entrepreneurship Micro-credential 2: DigCompEdu certification for digital education deliveryMicro-credential 3: EBAN certificate on impact investment (trainers)Micro-credential 4: EBAN certificate on impact investment (learners)Result 5 – Networking platform: Impact investment Hub * Requirements analysis * Development * Pilot testing * Deployment A quality assurance methodology that can be further utilised by university lecturers to better develop digital content for entrepreneurship courses and beyond Project dissemination activities outputs The ARIEES alumni network with early graduates during the lifecycle of the project 3 multiplier events that will serve as information and commitment exercises form external actors to further engage with the project outputs A Network of 4 ARIEES Certification Centres (see the Sustainability section)