The BioBeo website hosts the Digital Handbook, an online resource designed to inspire and guide anyone interested in integrating new educational content into the classroom, with a particular focus on the bioeconomy. Developed by the Center for Social and Economic Research (CASE) and technically implemented by SYNYO, this user-friendly tool empowers teachers, educators, and even those outside the educational sphere, to navigate the existing education governance structures.

Innovating governance: Blueprint and methodology

The Digital Handbook complements the Blueprint and Methodology for Innovative Governance, a deliverable prepared by CASE. Based on the inputs of the consortium partners, the report investigates the institutional and social environments related to introducing new content (especially bioeconomy) into schools in different countries, as well as which models and conditions can be identified as the most favourable. The aim is to strategically overcome the institutional and cultural barriers of implementing relevant circular bioeconomy education programmes in preschool, primary, and secondary schools. The report lays out three dimension to achieve innovation in school systems:

• actors relevant to governance of education, and specifically to the process of introducing new content into schools;
• procedures that can be used when introducing new content into schools;
• barriers and challenges one may encounter when introducing new content into schools. [1]

In order to make this invaluable knowledge accessible to those stakeholders who can facilitate change, a Digital Handbook was created and published on the BioBeo website under the section “Curriculum Change”.

The Digital Handbook

The Handbook serves as a roadmap for fostering innovation and ultimately transforming these structures to facilitate the introduction of innovative educational content better. It contains the most relevant societal messages and information enabling one to find their way around the existing governance structures of education, making them more innovative, and ultimately changing them for the better by introducing new content into schools. It outlines the various procedures that exist in different EU countries for introducing new content into

schools and based on their characteristics (advantages and disadvantages) and the user’s expectations, it points out potential paths best suited to what the user wants to do. The Handbook covers a wide spectrum of procedures, ranging from those in the hands of teachers and allowing minor changes, through those in the hands of schools and their school heads, to procedures in the hands of leading authorities and government that allow large-scale action. Users can also learn through the Handbook what barriers and challenges may impede them in the process. The users can learn about the relevance of broad participation in the governance of education and its many facets – community-based learning, youth-led activism or citizens’ engagement.

Most importantly, the handbook goes beyond just the information collected and materials developed by the BioBeo project. It connects users to existing external resources available online to amplify the message and increase the Handbook’s usefulness to anyone who wants to bring new content into schools. The Digital Handbook has a flowchart design that users can follow to get answers to their questions related to innovative governance of education and the introduction of new content in schools. [2]

References

[1] J. Bazyli Klakla, A. Maj, M. Gliniecka (2024) D2.2: Blueprint and Methodology for Innovative Governance

[2] J. Bazyli Klakla (2024) D2.4: Digital Handbook: Practical Paths for Introducing New Content into Schools.

Links

https://www.biobeo.eu/curriculum-change/

Keywords

Innovation, Governance, Education, Bioeconomy, Digital Tools