Icci observatory-empowering studentson innovation capital

Abstract

The daily teaching practice in engineering degree university classrooms reveals very low levels ofinnovation capital in the student body. This lack of creativity and the ability to invent or solve problemsof society reveals a series of deficiencies in students that are directly related to their competency development.These deficiencies represent an important barrier in the teaching-learning process, as well as anadded obstacle to fulfilling the objective of reducing dropout rates. Correcting these low levels of innovationcapital requires going back a link in the student’s formative trajectory and investigating the originof the difficulties in generating ideas or finding answers to specific problems.With this objective, the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) undertook research-actionon some 800 students located in an educational centre of great socio-cultural diversity, analysing factorssuch as the origin of the students, the pedagogical methodologies used with the students, the typologyof the teaching staff or their management model. The educational centre was taken as the basic unit ofstudy on which a theoretical model based on four pieces would be applied: individualised attention, internationalisation,the centre’s own identity and innovation. By means of this theoretical model appliedto a specific case, an attempt was made to find all the variables that decisively influenced the developmentof the student’s competence and a formula was sought to measure the probability of achieving asuccessful academic performance. The determination of this probabilistic formula opens a way for the empowerment of the student, eliminates existing barriers in the teaching-learning process and favourshis future engagement in the University.One of the results of the research was the proposal for the creation of an Innovation Observatory,which is conceived as a platform for systematically collecting and analysing those aspects that have animpact on the development of innovation capital in students, also offering multiple resources aimed atall agents involved in the teaching-learning process and aimed at improving the skills required todayby the socio-economic and working context that surrounds us.