Management of Entrepreneurship Projects from Project-Based Learning: Coworking StartUPS Project at Universidad Politécnica Salesiana (Salesian Polytechnic University), Ecuador

In the engineering education field, there is an identified need of innovative learning and teaching methods to improve students' entrepreneurship competencies in order to make connections between engineering and real society. This chapter addresses a management strategy for entrepreneurship projects in the university framework. It is the result of a cooperative experience from the Research Groups of Salesian Polytechnic University (UPS), the Technical University of Madrid (UPM), and the collaboration of other external entities. The management strategy is applied to undergraduate and postgraduate programs at UPS and has been called Coworking StartUPS Project. The research method is made up of different teaching methodologies--project-based learning, coworking, case studies--and different activities in and out of the university. The data were collected from students who were enrolled in the Coworking StartUPS Project, along with students and researchers from the three University Branch Campuses in the cities of Cuenca, Quito, and Guayaquil. The Coworking StartUPS Project links teaching & research activities with entrepreneurship are founded in cooperation and interaction, offering multiple possibilities for entrepreneurial skills development in the international context. This preprofessional experience promotes students to integrate the knowledge they have learnt and apply the new knowledge in an entrepreneurship project.