The first phase of the IMPACTWHEEL project is almost finished. Over a span of 6 months, the consortium partners went through a whirlwind of online meetings, partner meetings in three countries, trainings of colleagues, students, academics, and business owners, mentorship of startups, and dissemination activities. The rubber hit the road at the end of June 2025 with the training of partner representatives in the Value Creation Wheel (VCW) method at Nova SBE in Carcavelos, Portugal. The idea was not only to be trained in the method, but also to apply the VCW to the management of the consortium project. The truth is that while the method seems simple, it requires several iterations for people to really grasp it and to start utilizing it to solve challenges. You can read about the Carcavelos experience in the new VCW book (chapter “Navigating Complexity in Consortium-Based Innovation,” p.95).
University of St Andrews is one of the junior partners in the consortium, meaning that it is the first time we participate in an EIT-funded project. In this role, there is a steep learning curve on both the front end and the back end. Sparing the details of the back end (bureaucracy and red tape do not make for an exciting reading), here are the highlights of the trainings we delivered.
The start of the implementation of the project coincided with the start of the MSc in Entrepreneurship at the University of St Andrews Business School. The entrepreneurship students worked together with the MSc in Management students, and they had the task to come up with a venture creation idea and do the business canvas and the marketing plan for the new venture. They applied the VCW method to come up with the idea. In comparison with prior years when students had to work with local businesses, this time they were more vested in their venture idea, which resulted in better presentations. In retrospect, though, it became clear that they did not work with the VCW beyond the classroom, which is a lesson learned for future iterations – the instructors will need to engage the students with the VCW method throughout the semester so that they become comfortable with its utilization.
Each subsequent iteration produced better results. When we explained the method to academics, we spent more time with it, and when we did the last workshop, we included a case study illustrating the VCW method and the business canvas model, which made the theoretical part clearer to participants.
In the online workshop, we had participants from several European countries. While practical workshops are generally better in person, the nice thing about online workshops is the diversity of participants. One of them was Michela Franco, who is continuing the family tradition of wine making in the Piedmont region in Italy, while founding a new company with her brother to introduce innovations to the family tradition. When we learned that the winery is in Piedmont, we assumed that she was coming through our consortium partner Ceipiemonte. It turned out not to be the case, though – she had found out about our course through organic search! As chance would have it, our next partners’ meeting was coming up in two weeks in Turin, 50 minutes from the winery. The result – we ended up visiting the winery – cheers to good coincidences!
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