On December 23, 2020, the team of Jean Monnet Module “The European Union Entrepreneurial Environment at HEIs: Changing the World by Technology Ventures” had a business game with secondary school children of KNRTU chemical college. The topic of the game was European Union entrepreneurship values and green technologies.

35 students of the 9th and 10th grades gathered together for the game. The event started with a presentation of Dr. Julia Ziyatdinova on the short history of EU. The students recognized all the EU countries by their flags and geographical position. The presentation continued with the discussion of EU entrepreneurship values and social responsibility of business including organizational governance, human rights, labor practices, environment, fair operating practices, consumer issues, community involvement and development.

Dr. Artem Bezrukov continued the discussions with the group moving to the concept of University 3.0 and transformations in the European Higher Education Area. The University 3.0. concept has many prospects for young researchers who are willing to implement their innovative ideas within the university environment. Modern universities act in a multicultural environment and partner with other companies in interdisciplinary research by implementing their know-hows into industry. These processes raise the issues of social responsibility and environmental protection.

Dr. Anna Starodubova proceeded on the role of European Union in developing global trends in environmentally friendly technologies and quality standards based on the principles on sustainable development, green economy and circular economy. She focused on the issues of product recycling, polymers in particular.

Further on, the students were switched to a business game. In the first round, each of the participants created a handicraft item to recognize their model of thinking, divergent or convergent. Divergent thinkers concentrate on generating original ideas while convergent thinkers can give very good definitions of the problems. This technique is very appropriate for team building where both models of thinking should be present. Thus, based on the thinking models, due to a limited number of divergent thinkers, students were grouped into four teams, though initially five teams were planned.

The second round of the game went as follows. Each team was given a task to choose a polymer product (made in Russia) which does not comply with the EU social responsibility or green technology principles and to find an option to change this product at the stage of its design, production, usage or recycling so as to make it corresponding to the EU rules. In the third round, each team made a presentation of their project on a large piece of paper. The jury chaired by Dr. Dilbar Sultanova made an assessment of the project presentations based on the criteria of teamwork efficiency and practical application of the changes in polymer product.

The best award went to the team which offered a project on changing the school desks made of polymer composites so as to comply with the EU regulations. All the business game participants and their teachers were awarded certificates and sweet prizes.

We hope that the business game formed a general positive image of the EU in students’ minds and encouraged them to continue their EU studies.

⚹This project has been co-funded by the Erasmus + Programme of the European Union. This website reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.