This study explores how higher education institutions (HEIs) can foster the relevance of education for sustainable development (ESD) and strategic human resource development for a holistic sustainability transformation. Sharing a case example, it discusses how sustainable and responsible research, development and innovation (RDI) competences can be recognised, described and acknowledged to support the contextualised application of ESD and human resource development in one HEI of the INVEST university alliance and its stakeholders. It compares education professionals’ and stakeholders’ views on current and future competence needs and investigates inter-organisational competence development practices. The methodology encompasses a qualitative and interpretive case study based on focus group interviews. The results on the current sustainable competences indicated that HEI and stakeholder respondents identified disciplinary competences as the most important competence cluster followed by systems-thinking, strategies-thinking and integration competences. Although HEIs and stakeholders jointly regard disciplinary competences as most critical for the future, they have considerably different perspectives on the megatrends influencing these needs and the overall spectrum of the required competences. This study provides methodological means for contextualising sustainability competences and enhancing stakeholder-informed competence development. The results may serve as a point of reference for aligning higher education curricula and human resource development with ESD for more sustainable higher education.

Objective: This paper attempts to shed some light on the entrepreneurial university elements through the examination of two HEIs – Karelia University of Applied Sciences and Poznan University of Technology. The case study explores the prerequisites for effective result-driven entrepreneurship education and business collaboration. Furthermore, the study examines what is the potential to build joint entrepreneurial pathways for HEI students and staff in an international context within the Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership Project “Entrepreneurship and Communication in Multicultural Teams (ECMT+)”. Methodology: The nature of this exploratory case study is descriptive and data was collected using literature and reports review, participatory observation, reflection, and inference tools. The HEIs cases of practical implementation of the entrepreneurial university framework were selected with a purposeful sampling technique. The applied case study was practical orientated. Due to the small number of informants within the case and its qualitative nature, no generable conclusions can be drawn. Findings: Even as a subjective and descriptive case study, it offers an arena to explore one authentic example of a community of practice and entrepreneurial education platform promoting the systematic competence and skills development in international collaboration context. Entrepreneurial university with a true multicultural nature supports building inclusive education bridging universities with their regions and businesses. Value Added: The study reveals that the higher education has to be more inclusive and develop practices to meet the more diverse learners who may have disabilities and learning difficulties, diverse racial, cultural and linguistic backgrounds or meet with social and economic challenges. The value resulting from the research allow to state that the effective cooperation and building of entrepreneurial university practices at ECMT+ partner universities are beneficial both for students, teachers and the HEIs and they could be applied at other HEIs. Recommendations: The strategic development of higher education should be oriented to promote the entrepreneurial mindset reforming the curricula to provide academic graduates more practical skilled, multi-disciplinary and social competent to discover the entrepreneurial opportunities and boosting employability. Despite the qualitative nature of the study it may enrich the discussion on the entrepreneurial university practice.

The authors would like to make the following corrections about the published paper