The Climate Graduate School is already well established, building on its very imaginative start with the Journey in 2010. We now, in 2014, have an EIT-labelled doctoral programme, 82 EIT-labelled Master courses and a thriving Alumni Association.
The Climate Graduate School focusses on postgraduate education at masters and doctoral level. Students gain a unique ‘learning by doing’ experience in innovation and entrepreneurship in addition to their first class academic training in climate science and related areas.
The Climate-KIC Ph.D. added value programme aims at developing the next generation of climate innovators. The programme has been developed to provide doctorates with valuable additional skills to foster their entrepreneurial thinking.
By becoming a Climate-KIC Ph.D. candidate, you also have the opportunity to get involved in the European-wide network of our Climate-KIC community and develop valuable contacts for your professional future.
Climate-KIC runs 2 types of summer school: theJourney, and thematic summer schools. Each summer school not only supports the labelled programmes but also encourages a wider audience by accepting participants from Universities and companies (partner and non-partner) who are not in the labelled Master programme.
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The Journey
The five week programme offers a unique combination of academic study and real-world business experience with the aim of creating the climate change leaders of tomorrow. This fully-funded summer school, The Journey, takes top-graduates on a journey across three countries and some of Europe’s best universities and businesses.
The Journey provides to the students the suitable tools to make an impact on the global effort to adapt to and stop further climate change and become an entrepreneur. Students undergo a vast development, create business ideas related to climate change adaptation and mitigation and leave with a whole new skill- and mind-set to really make a difference.
The Journey 2015 will take place from 5th July to 8th August and from 26 July to 29 August
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Thematic summer schools
PhDs, in their year 1, develop a rich network through theJourney. Building on this in year 2 or 3 of their studies, they focus on thematic specialisms and how to apply research within the innovation context, whilst continuing in a ‘learning by doing’ format. Designed within the EIT quality learning model, the thematic summer school is a two week programme enabling integration of PhDs within their platform and offering the chance to work on cross platform challenges within specialist expert teams
The Climate Business School was soft-launched in 2014. The Business School will focus on developing and delivering executive and professional education that will facilitate this systemic thinking and will create an integrated multi-sector ecosystem to address climate change. These education activities map onto the challenges and thematic areas of Climate-KIC’s platforms and flagships.
Climate KIC will launch the Business School in 2015 with executive and professional programmes aimed at educating visionary global leaders – to catalyse change for a prosperous, resilient and sustainable environmental and economic future. Climate-KIC will offer a leadership perspective on systemic integrated solutions, based on knowledge drawn from the unique experience gained from our own innovation pipeline. Delivery will be through a broad spectrum of short-duration courses to executives, business leaders, and professionals.
In addition, Climate-KIC will develop a professional certification programme for the many innovators and entrepreneurs working within the KIC community. This will lead to certified innovator/entrepreneur status.
To support these executive and professional vocational programmes, Climate-KIC will develop a portfolio of learning packages and case studies based on the unique experience of our pillars.
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Executive Education
The specificity of Climate-KIC Executive Education is providing courses that enable participants to ‘become a part of a multidisciplinary cross sectorial climate community of knowledge and experience’. The overarching principles are to:
- Deliver high-calibre executive level education; ensuring relevance to the public, private, governmental, and academic arenas.
- Develop and deliver high-profile programmes with stakeholders with high visibility.
In 2014 Climate KIC delivered a number of successful courses under this remit, and we will build on these for 2015:
- Climactio: Shaping eco-leaders to create low carbon prosperity.
- Innovator Catalyst: The Innovator Catalyst is targeted at practitioners who work on low carbon systems-change in companies and/or authorities and thus covers an audience that is essential for implementing low carbon innovation. The Universitat Politécnica de Valenca delivered the “Boosting Transitions in Water Management” workshop
- The Enabler Journey: This course caters for those who wish to inspire, catalyse, inform and support entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs in actionable innovation ideas.
- Education Accelerator – developing training courses from our innovation experience: This instrument enables Climate-KIC to utilise knowledge developed within the innovation pillar to create executive courses and implement packs and tools for training our Climate-KIC staff to enhance the innovation capacity of our community.
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Professional Certification for Climate-KIC Innovators and Entrepreneurs
Climate KIC recognises the need for reigniting the entrepreneurial spirit in Europe as addressed in the European Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan. ‘Entrepreneurship is a key enabler of economic growth and innovation’. To address this, Climate-KIC will develop a professional certification programme that builds on individuals’ workplace entrepreneurial endeavour within our innovation community.
Valencia RIC provides experts to the working group that is developing the professional Certification Programme
Climate KIC will pilot this in 2015, and once accreditation is established, the certification will be open to the innovators and entrepreneurs from other KICs and eventually to individuals external to the KICs. This professional certification will be first of its kind in the world for recognising the innovators/entrepreneurs’ education gained through vocational endeavour.
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Knowledge product development
Pilots: These build upon the CLC and RIC regions as seeding ground for knowledge product development.
Case Studies: In 2015, Climate-KIC will simultaneously develop a pool of case studies on innovative/entrepreneurial activities from the pillars, CLCs, RIC regions. This knowledge base will be used in the business school for professional and executive education. There will be concerted effort to ensure education can be supported by a Digital platform for eLearning to deliver short courses to middle and lower management of companies and institutions, thus contributing towards the revenue line for Climate-KIC.