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Education as a means to increase innovation capacity

As part of the innovation strategy, a change of culture will be initiated in the education system with more focus on innovation.

People are innovative. Employees and entrepreneurs with the right competences are crucial for innovation in companies, organisations and authorities. It requires a workforce with innovative competences and where more have the ability to create and develop their own job. Employee-driven innovation is closely associated with strong Danish cultural characteristics such as flat hierarchies and good collaborative abilities as well as strengths within design and ICT.

The Government has set ambitious targets for education. Increases in admission numbers in higher education in recent years means that the supply of a highly educated workforce will increase significantly in the future.

A number of analyses show that more highly educated people in the private sector generally increases growth in society. The same is also true of innovative companies where a highly educated workforce is often a prerequisite for increased productivity.

Education plays a central role in strengthening the involvement of employees in innovation processes. Strong professional competences and an ongoing updating of knowledge are needed to contribute to innovation processes. Employee competences can be improved through ordinary education programmes, the course of further education, competence development or workplace learning where employees are given the professional necessities to be able to be involved in decision-making processes and innovation programmes.

More focus on innovation in education is the first step on the path towards more innovative employees and to increasing the motivation of students to become entrepreneurs. The ability to be innovative should be a fundamental element of all education from primary school to PhDs.

The Government will implement the following initiatives (19-27):

19. Increase practice-elements at all education levels to support innovation
20. Support innovation in the education of teachers and educators
21. Support the support of talented students
22. Create a cohesive primary school system to promote talented and independent students
23. Strengthen the competences in innovation and entrepreneurship in vocational education
24. Strengthen the innovative and business-oriented competences of PhD students
25. Ensure new learning targets, and forms of teaching and exams
26. Implement an innovation competition for students in primary and secondary education
27. Strengthen the integration of innovation and entrepreneurship in education programmes

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last modified May 31, 2013