Sustainable Alliance Manager: Learning Experience towards Collaborative Skills with Green Consciousness (SAMExperience) is a three-year EU Erasmus+ project (KA220-HED – Cooperation partnerships in higher education) coordinated by the Faculty of Business Studies at Mondragon University (Spain).

The project aims to assess the gap between theoretical and practical knowledge in the collaborative-green sector by realizing an innovative learning experience for future Sustainable Alliance Managers (SAM).

Project Goals

  • Facilitate the exchange of knowledge and good practices among higher education institutions and SMEs.
  • Develop collaborative and green skills for professionals to manage sustainable alliances.
  • Support SMEs in navigating the green transition through skilled alliance management.
Why This Project Matters
  • 99% of companies in the EU are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), playing a crucial role in the economy.
  • To stay competitive in a green-transition era, SMEs must form alliances — but 60% of alliances fail.
  • There is a critical need to develop the role of Sustainable Alliance Managers in both academic and professional fields, emphasizing collaborative skills and green consciousness.

Objectives

  • Develop the SAMExperience, an international, digital, flexible, and customised learning platform for Sustainable Alliance Managers (SAMs).
  • Short-term objective: Deliver a digital and personalised learning experience for SAMs, tailored to individual and institutional needs.
  • Long-term objective: Equip professionals with collaborative and green skills to manage sustainable alliances in SMEs, particularly in the manufacturing sector.
  • Contribute to the development of the SAM profile to meet the demand for sustainable intercompany growth within SMEs.

Impact

  • Define the Sustainable Alliance Manager profile and its core competences.
  • Develop digital and personalized learning paths for enhancing collaborative-green skills.
  • Pilot and assess competence development in higher education students within the business and engineering fields.

Project Partners

The project provides a methodology to train collaborative-green skills for Business Management and Engineering students, guiding them toward the Sustainable Alliance Manager role.

SAMExperience aims to:

The SAMExperience project brings together 6 partners — including 5 universities and 1 company — from Spain, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania. These institutions collaborate across research fields such as sustainability, strategic alliances, and the green economy, aiming to build an effective training methodology for the collaborative-green skills sector.