eLeadership Trainer Accelerator

Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

New Bulgarian University

Bulgaria (lead partner)Website »

NBU is a student-oriented, autonomous academic institution for cultivating and enterprising persons responsible for their own development in a democratic environment, civil society, market relations, European and world integration. As a liberal academic institution, NBU is based on the relation between education, research and entrepreneurship.

NBU provides general interdisciplinary and narrowly specialised education based on research related to practice. It determines its academic profile in the sphere of social sciences and humanities, natural sciences and new technologies, and arts.

NBU was established in September 1991 upon decision of the Great National Assembly. On 5 July 2001, NBU obtained institutional accreditation from the National Evaluation and Accreditation Agency for maximum of 6-year period, and in December 2005 it passed through the second accreditation procedure. In 2004 NBU was accredited by The Open University in Great Britain.

It was the first university in Bulgaria, which introduced the credit system, the study for the educational degrees specialist, bachelor and master, the distance learning and continuing education. NBU has 27 departments and educational centres in Sofia, Vidin, Varna and Plovdiv. Annually, 12.000 students study at NBU.

The studies are organised in educational programmes at the schools and centres for continuing education. The educational curricula are interdisciplinary, and include courses, provided by the different departments, focusing on active educational forms, including distance and virtual learning.

The Department of Informatics has more than 1.000 undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate students. The master degree programmes on “IT Project Management”, “Internet software technologies” and “Multimedia and computer animation” of the department have been rated as second best in Bulgaria by the Bulgarian University Ranking System of the Ministry of Education and Science of Republic of Bulgaria for the last four years, since the rating system was introduced.

ESI CEE

BulgariaWebsite »

ESI Center Eastern Europe was established in 2003 as a public-private partnership by the European Software Institute, Spain, Bulgarian Association of Software Companies and with the support of Bulgarian ICT Agency, UNDP-Bulgaria, USAID and ICT industry stakeholders.

The mission of ESI CEE is to increase ICT professional skills and qualifications in Eastern Europe implementing global leading strategic management and software engineering methodologies, to improve the industry capacity and productivity and ICT business competitiveness. ESI CEE is specialised in providing training and certification to ICT practitioners in the field of Quality Management, leading ICT projects & teams, information security, strategic ICT business planning and management.

Since its establishment, ESI CEE has a close collaboration with New Bulgarian University and three other national universities. ESI CEE provides academic and executive training in quality models, software design, digitised ecosystems and management, cyber security and threats, etc. ESI CEE actively engages with advanced students and researchers from Computer Science, Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence (and Machine Learning) programmes.

An ESI CEE’s expert is a Steering Committee member of the EC CEN Workshop in ICT skills and a national representative in CEN on standardisation of e-competences.

Digital National Alliance

BulgariaWebsite »

Digital National Alliance (DNA) is a non-governmental organisation and is part of the initiative of the European Commission “Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs”. It aims to promote and implement the objectives of the initiative in Bulgaria. It was launched in June 2014 as the National Coalition for Digital Jobs in Bulgaria by Gergana Passy – Digital Champion for Bulgaria.

DNA brings together public authorities, business, education, training and labour market stakeholders. It supports the activities of more than 30 members of the alliance to respond to the shortage of ICT skills, and to meet the demand of ICT professionals and experts in Bulgaria.

DNA facilitates the dialog between the major stakeholders in the field of ICT in the country – the Bulgarian Government, Academia and top training providers, local branches of the major global businesses such as Google, Microsoft, etc. and the local ICT business and start-up ecosystem.

Algebra University College

CroatiaWebsite »

Algebra University College is a not- for-profit private accredited higher educational institution active in the fields of computer engineering and economy. Institutions’ current study programmes on levels 6 and 7 of EQF (undergraduate and graduate) include: computer engineering, multimedia engineering and digital marketing on both levels, as well as one of the first accredited eleadership MBA study programmes in Europe.

Algebra currently has more than 900 active students and 140 teachers, out of which more than 25 are full time employees, with additional 20 full time employed assistants, technical and administrative staff. According to the Croatian national Agency for Science and Higher Education (ASHE), Algebra currently has highly developed quality assurance system and outstanding overall re-accreditation results compared to other professional higher educational institutions in Croatia.

For the provision of innovative projects aiming to attract more secondary school students to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), Algebra was awarded Partner of the year 2014 –  best Microsoft educational partner award (out of 3200 institutions globally). The institution has experience in some 25 EU funded projects as a consortium partner or leading organisation during the past decade. Besides digital technologies, being main focus of professional and scientific interest, the team of scientists and experts is active also in areas of National Qualification Standards development, Data Analytics, Social Network Analysis in Human Resource Development as well as in introduction of HRM and knowledge management ICT systems in public and private organisations in Croatia.

Munster University of Applied Sciences

GermanyWebsite »

The Münster University of Applied Sciences was founded in 1971 out of eight public and private schools and has developed to a modern, achievement-oriented university. The university is with approximately 10.000 students one of the biggest institutions of its kind in Germany. It has 400 staff members (thereof 250 teaching staff) and offers 50 courses of study in 12 departments and 3 interdisciplinary institutions. Research is concentrated in the following 6 competence areas: Construction/Environment/Resource, Health/Life Sciences, Product and Process Development, Applied Social Sciences, Company and Service Management, Communication/Information.

MUAS puts itself into service for the people in the society. With a multidisciplinary approach, it qualifies people for life in the global market and imparts a living understanding for the changing world of life and work. Supported by a network of strategic partnerships MUAS develops the leading position among German HEIs through a market oriented, effective and enduring design of education as well as the transfer of knowledge and research.

In 2007, MUAS was awarded as one of the Top 5 Universities for university-industry knowledge exchange by the German Ministry of Education and Research.

Residing within MUAS, Science-to-Business Marketing Research Centre (S2BMRC) is recognised world-wide for its approach to Science-to-Business Marketing. The centre has 20 team members and researchers and has developed knowledge, models and tools in entrepreneurship, university-business cooperation, innovation and technology transfer.

ISTUD Business school

ItalyWebsite »

ISTUD Foundation is an independent business school operating in the EU in the field of executive education, advanced lifelong learning and management research. It was founded in 1970 by Assolombarda (the most important industrial association in Italy) and a group of Italian and multinational companies. In 2005 ISTUD became a private non-profit foundation. It is a SME that, as an independent advanced centre of management research and training, acts as a ‘bridge’ between academy and the world of professions. Its mission is to consolidate and spread a management culture based on CSR, multiculturalism, professional upright and value production.

ISTUD has followed the evolution of contemporary management, contributing to the diffusion of a modern “management culture”: more than 64.000 managers have attended its courses in more than 46 years of activity. In the past years ISTUD has developed and carried on 1.585 training courses, for a total of 4.014 days of training, with 14.492 participants.

ISTUD devotes a particular interest to the exploitation of innovative and alternative teaching and learning methodologies on leadership, further learning, critical thinking, problem solving, decision making, storytelling, analogical learning and creativity. In 2000 ISTUD developed the first Italian online network for professional trainers called POOL-Professional Opportunities OnLine. In 2001 it was the first business school in Italy to develop a post graduate Master Programme in e-Business and then a Master Programme in CRM Management.

Since 2003 ISTUD has carried out several EU funded projects for the capacity building of the faculty of Higher Education Institutions in third countries. Since 2015 ISTUD has been leading the Lead3.0 Academy Knowledge Alliance project, on which the current project builds on.

ISTUD can rely on  internal staff of 28 employees and 150 trainers in its Faculty.

ISTUD is member of EFMD, EABIS, THA (Triple Helice Association) and it agrees to the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) UN Global Compact.

Gruppo Pragma

ItalyWebsite »

Gruppo Pragma Srl is a SME that since 1996 has been operating in multimedia communication, elearning and knowledge management. Gruppo Pragma has its own R&D Lab in AREA Science Park, Trieste, one of the most important Technological and Scientific Parks in Europe and the largest in Italy.

Innovation and digital technologies have always been a focus for the mission and the development strategy of Gruppo Pragma. The company was awarded twice the first prize and special mention for innovative solutions and processes (2012-2013) by Confindustria (Italian Industrial Association) and the Ministry of Research.

Gruppo Pragma designs and delivers projects to enterprises and public institutions by selecting and implementing the most suitable media and technology mix with a purpose and effective UX focus.

The areas of activity are:

  • Professional Communication and Training: the professional communication and training systems are based on innovative and digital methodologies, including social learning and knowledge management platforms.
  • Innovation Technology: promoting ICT skills to non-technical professionals and managers.
  • Internal and External Marketing: with the help of the virtual assistant project (chatbot), the company designs systems of knowledge sharing based on natural language processing.

Gruppo Pragma has developed (thanks to EU and national funding) and owns a proprietary platform for the implementation of Chatbots, i.e. software characters able to establish a conversation (Question and Answers) in Natural Language with users. Also in 2016-2017 Gruppo Pragma developed and owns a proprietary software platform for social digital learning and e-coaching/e-mentoring.