As the project has been progressing over the past two years, many intersting events took place. 

146 delegates across 110 institutions from seven Wider Europe countries and the UK took part in a in Oxford from 2-4 September 2019 conference to launch the second year of British Council’s Creative Spark Higher Education Programme. Ministry delegates from Armenia and Azerbaijan joined the event, held in the historic Wadham College, Holywell Music Room, and the programme patron Baroness Nicholson, the Prime Minister`s Trade Envoy, was the guest of honour. 

Newcastle University and the Centre for Analysis of Economic Reforms and Communications were invited to present our experiences from Year 1 in a thematic session on “Running University Partnerships in Creative Spark: Challenges and Opportunities”. The session was Chaired by Nigar Baimova, British Council Azerbaijan and Dr Fiona Whitehurst presented on behalf of our partnership. Other presentations in this session were from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. 

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Seven country dedicated workshops were conducted to discuss the sustainability of enterprise education in the programme countries and to discuss actions needed for a systemic change over the long-term period. Dr Victoria Mountford-Brown and Rashad Huseynov represented our partnership in the Azerbaijan workshop. 

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As part of the British Council Creative Spark: Higher Education Enterprise Programme Newcastle University Business School welcomed a group of enterprise educators from Azerbaijan to the University and City in May 2019.

Gareth Trainer, Assistant Director (Enterprise and Entrepreneurship) at the University’s Careers Service presented our approach to developing entrepreneurial students and graduates. As Director and Vice-Chair of Enterprise Educators UK, he also provided an overview of that organisation which is the national network for enterprise educators and seeks to support its members to increase the scale, scope and effectiveness of enterprise and entrepreneurship education within their institutions. 

The study tour also saw the Azerbaijani delegation participate in some of the activities taking place during Newcastle Startup Week. Founder Paul Lancaster wanted to give Startup Week an even more of an international focus this year and the Creative Spark visit was intentionally scheduled to coincide with the event. Paul provided complimentary tickets for the event and ‘Day 2’ included a VR/AR showcase event at PROTO, followed by a creative industries-focused event at Gateshead College. They also attended the Newcastle University Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Awards 2019.

2019

Seminar on the “Entrepreneurship Education and Innovative Training Methods” was held.

EnterpriseAzerbaijan.com portal held the start-up training at UNEC

EnterpriseAzerbaijan.com portal conducted a start-up training at Baku Engineering University

Enterprise Azerbaijan held the next startup training at Azerbaijan University

The next startup training of the EnterpriseAzerbaijan portal was held at the Baku Slavic University

Vusal Gasimli Met with Start-uppers Who Participated in the Project of the Newcastle University

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