Welcome to Erasmus+ Knowledge Alliance ERDI - Empowering Regional Development and Innovations! Together we co-create knowledge, skills and innovations boosting bioeconomy businesses and education.
-business starts with people, knowledge grows with people-
Learn more about the project, the upcoming activities and the feedback from previous ERDI students and teachers from the ERDI prezi!
ERDI in a nutshell
Bioeconomy in ERDI refers to a sustainable but profitable use of renewable natural resources providing new products, processes and technologies mainly interlinked with the usage of wood and agriculture based biomasses. Bioeconomy is one of the growing businesses in Europe. It is a tool for sustainable and inclusive economic growth and job creation. However, bioeconomy as approached in ERDI still suffers from a lack of skilled labour and also business models are still too few in the regions in case. ERDI builds bridges between different actors on and between the regions creating innovation ecosystems to boost creativity.
The European partner countries struggle with economic and social challenges. Remote and rural regions suffer from decreasing economy, unemployment and migration. ERDI seeks solutions to these problems boosting the expertise, entrepreneurship and co-creation of knowledge in bioeconomy. ERDI project aims for better graduate employability and improved competitiveness of the regional economy to gain better income in the future.
ERDI works through a multidisciplinary and international network of educational institutions, enterprises and administrators. ERDI develops the students’ and other beneficiaries’ expertise in bioeconomy and supports generic, multicultural and transversal competences. ERDI also internationalises education; fosters innovations and builds bridges between the stakeholders on different levels and regions. Furthermore, ERDI improves the openness and availability of higher education through innovative digital educational materials.
ERDI partnership
ERDI partnership relies on multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral combination of expertise and competences of European university, university of applied sciences and business partners from Czech, Finland, Hungary, the Netherlands and Slovakia. The consortium involves Canadian associated partners from New Brunswick region. Karelia University of Applied Sciences coordinates the entity.
The partnership is innovative; European higher educational institutes combine a multidisciplinary network exploring bioeconomy, education and regional development from varied perspectives and expertise: administration, agriculture, business, economy, European affairs and law, regional development, renewable energy and social issues. Also the working life partners represent varied expertise (business, NGO, policy making and advisory services) and they are geographically diverse: each HEI brings in one working life partner. These partners have been carefully chosen by the HEIs.
Second innovative element in the partnership is the added value provided by the Canadian university, community college and business associated partners sharing expertise and business models and offering new potential markets to the European businesses. Furthermore, ERDI is supported by North Karelia Regional Council as an associated partner especially contributing into dissemination actions. You may find here a detailed list of ERDI partners.
ERDI project team relies on the principle of utilise the former expertise and achievements to learn and employ new knowledge and create innovations to solve the problems. The level of expertise, commitment, trust and professional knowledge within the ERDI network is extremely high which can be confirmed by the results of the previous co-operation. Together this consortium can utilise and supplement each other’s’ expertise in a best possible way to empower graduate employability and regional, national and even international bioeconomy business.