An-Najah Business Innovation and Partnership Centre (NaBIC) is dedicated to enhancing the innovative culture among An-Najah students as well as to building sustainable partnerships with enterprises in the private sector locally, regionally and globally. NaBIC provides students with several services and supports in various fields such as mentoring on business planning, innovation and product development, feasibility studies , management and marketing of their entrepreneurial  ideas and projects .It offers and organizes several projects and competitions in cooperation with business incubators to encourage entrepreneurship mindsets in the university.‎

Contact information of the main actors involved in the initiative

• Name and surname: Dr. Yahya Saleh
• Position: NaBIC, Director
• Organisation: An-Najah National University
• Address: P.O Box 7, Nablus, Palestine
• Telephone: +970 (9) 2345113
• Email: ysaleh@najah.edu
• Website: www.nabic.edu

• Name and surname: Dr. Mohammad Najjar
• Position: Director of Project Management and Consulting Unit
• Organisation: An-Najah National University
• Address: P.O Box 7, Nablus, Palestine
• Telephone: +970 (9) 2345113
• Email: m.najjar@najah.edu
• Website: projects.najah.edu

Relevance of the development of initiative in its specific context

An-Najah National University (ANU), through NaBIC and the Practical Training Center (PTC), has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Palestinian Food Industries Union (PFIU) to cooperate in different fields including joint projects, internships, applied research and graduation projects implementation. As  result of this, both ANU and PFIU could win a 3-year project fund from the Quality Improvement Fund (QIF) supported by the World Bank (WB). The project aims at bridging the gap between food industries’  requirements and expectations from interns and graduates and the soft and core skills the interns and graduates possess. More specifically, the project works on enhancing the soft and core skills of interns and students which will enable them to successfully conduct their internships in Palestinian food industries and hence increase their chances of  having jobs in these industries. The project covers interns and graduates from Industrial, Chemical, Mechanical Engineering, Applied Chemistry, Food Technology, Marketing and Administrative Sciences conducting their internships in local Palestinian food industries registered in PFIU.

In addition, the project is expected to develop robust partnerships between ANU and PFIU firms which enable students’ practical and soft skills to be enhanced, supplying the local Palestinian market with highly-qualified graduates, fostering the culture of knowledge transfer and innovation and facilitating the conduction of scientific research.

The expected  outcomes of this project could be summarized in: generating more skilful graduates capable of competing with other universities graduates in finding proper jobs in the private sector, getting experience is a great way to build interns confidence, encouraging scientific research under the supervision of the ANU staff and undergraduate researchers via addressing new research fields in food industries to benefit them in diagnosing and solving problems in an innovative way, building more robust partnerships between the university and the PFIU enterprises through enhancing the linkages between both parties and drawing a practical map to build a partnership with other private sector unions as well as to create and implement an internship program to academic programs that do not have an internship in their curriculum.

Visibility of the action

The Project Partners:

• Practical Training Center at An-Najah National University.
• An-Najah Business Innovation and Partnership Center
• Palestinian Food Industries Union
• Food Industries Company in West Bank

The project has been directed by the director of PTC with technical assistance of NaBIC’s director and has been coordinated by a coordinator employed by the QIF running the project’s activities in NaBIC. In addition, a joint (from ANU and PFIU) steering committee conducts the follow up and monitoring of the project.  An external monitoring and evaluation (M&E) consultant has been assigned the task of evaluating the progress of the project implementation along its life cycle. Communication between project’s partners is organized by the project’s coordinator who facilitates the implementation of project’s activities in ANU and PFIU based on the instructional and implementation manual of QIF and WB. The communication means was proved to be effective in this project.

Transferability

The figure below depicts the collaboration model between the partners.  Without loss of generality, such collaboration model could be successfully applied to other institutions and countries via tailoring it to other industries and other partners.

Sustainability

This project has the required skillful staff to run all activities. Therefore, most of the fund allocated to this project will be on the development of a systematic practical training and monitoring methodology. Therefore, by the end of the project, practical training program will be equipped with all infrastructures that enable it to sustain delivering its intended services. Accomplishing all activities according to what they are intended to will guarantee its sustainability. In addition, a set of capacity building programs have been conducted to build the capacities of NaBIC’s and PTC’s staff to enhance their capacities on conducting soft skills training for interns after the completion of the project. Also, a set of capacity building for field supervisors in food industries as well as for academic supervisors on the use of the computerized internship process and following up and management system. Such system has been developed as one of the project’s main activities. A practical self-guiding internship manual has been developed for field supervisors to enable them successfully prepare internship packages for students and effectively manage the internship process in their factories. All of these deliverables (capacity building, computerized system and internship manual) will certainly guarantee the sustainability of the project.

Innovative character

Success Factors:

• Effective and efficient management by project’s team.
• Collaboration of QIF in resolving some conflict of interests.
• Recruitment of experienced qualified external consultants.
• Collaboration of PFIU, ANU, students and food industries.
• Availability of financial support to fund the project’s diverse activities.

Innovations introduced:

• Conducting innovative technical and administrative graduation projects which successfully addressed and solved the problems food industries encounter.
• Purchasing of cutting-edge equipment and technologies to acquaint engineering and food technology students with their use and utilization.
• Utilization of the purchased equipment by food industries to test their products.
• Capacity building of students, academic and field supervisors to enhance their soft skills and cores skills.
• A joint international study visit was conducted to UK to exchange experiences in one of the world’s pioneering institutes in food industries.

Impact

Strengthening the ANU – Private sector relationship and making more involvement of the private sector in the development and shaping the practical training curriculum to satisfy job hunters. More collaboration between different disciplines for the purpose of solving technical problems in the private sector firms in innovative and integrated manners. It is expected that more recognition of the ANU graduates’ practical skills and hence more chance of employment.