Promoting STEM and Social Entrepreneurship through American and Armenian Higher Education Collaboration
Funding Partner: U.S. Department of State
Principal Investigator: Dr. Susana Santos
Co-Principal Investigator: Dr. Vilma Fuentes
Project Announcement
Sept 4, 2024
Florida State's Learning Systems Institute (LSI) and the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship will work together on a U.S. Department of State grant to enhance entrepreneurship education in Armenia in partnership with the Armenian State University of Economics (ASUE). The grant begins immediately and will run through September of 2026.
This project will develop Armenian STEM and social entrepreneurship through a collaboration between Florida State University and the Armenian State University of Economics. American faculty will train ASUE faculty and administrators on entrepreneurship education, support the creation of a STEM Social Innovators Incubator at ASUE, partner with Armenian peers to develop four FSU/ASUE courses on social entrepreneurship, incorporate a COIL project through one of these new courses, and collaboratively implement an FSU/ASUE Certificate in Social Entrepreneurship. The project will create a new partnership between Armenian and American universities that fosters mutual understanding and respect.
Dr. Vilma Fuentes, Program Director for the FSU Ukraine Task Force and an Associate in Research at LSI, will serve as the Co-Principal Investigator with Dr. Susana Santos, Jim Moran Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship in the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship at Florida State University, serving as the Principal Investigator.
“Our work in Armenia is just the beginning of what we hope will be a lasting partnership,” said Dr. Santos. “By building a strong foundation in entrepreneurship education, we are setting the stage for sustained collaboration that will benefit both our institutions and the broader global community for years to come.”
Among the goals of the project are to establish a collaborative STEM Social Innovators Incubator at ASUE to encourage youth entrepreneurship, elevate the entrepreneurship knowledge and skills of ASUE faculty and administrators, train ASUE students in the basic principles of entrepreneurship through the creation and implementation of four domain new courses which will form part of the FSU/ASUE Certificate in Social Entrepreneurship, apply knowledge of social and design thinking through a FSU-ASUE Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) project and establish a new institutional partnership between FSU and ASUE that promotes mutual understanding, collaboration, and respect between Armenians and Americans.
“This is a phenomenal opportunity to promote entrepreneurship education in a former Soviet country, develop a new international partnership and implement project-based virtual exchange projects with students and faculty in the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship,” said Dr. Fuentes. “This work could be applied to other countries and contexts in the future.
"This project will allow us at FSU to launch a new Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) project with partners at the Armenian State University of Economics. I anticipate that we will gain many new insights that we should be able to apply to future projects with Ukraine and other regions of the world."
2025 Update
LSI and the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship are implementing a two-year, U.S. Department of State-funded project titled “Promoting STEM and Social Entrepreneurship Education through American Armenian Higher Education Collaboration.” The project is forging a new collaboration between FSU and the Armenian State University of Economics, the second largest university in Armenia. From October 2024 to June 2025, the FSU team assessed the entrepreneurship knowledge and skills of ASUE faculty, advised Armenian partners on the construction of a new STEM Social Innovators Incubator, created an entrepreneurship pedagogy resource toolkit, developed a 10-week Collaborative Online International Learning program and handbook, and created additional educational resources to support a future ASUE-FSU virtual exchange program.
2026 Update
From July 2025 to June 2026, LSI continued to work with partners at the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship (JMC) and the Armenian State University of Economics (ASUE) to implement a project called, “Promoting STEM and Social Entrepreneurship through American and Armenian Higher Education Collaboration.”
Dr. Vilma Fuentes, the project co-director, travelled to Yerevan to train ASUE faculty on Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), a high impact teaching methodology that promotes internationalization, intercultural communication, technology, and critical thinking skills. Dr. Susana Santos, the project director, and Dr. Eric Ligouri, the Associate Dean of Entrepreneurship, also participated in this travel and led an intensive faculty workshop on entrepreneurship education.
Upon returning from Armenia, a course titled, “Entrepreneurial Solutions to Societal Changes” on two learning management systems: Moodle and Canvas was developed. The course included a 10-week COIL project that used design thinking to develop social entrepreneurship skills. The 10-week COIL project was implemented in the Fall 2025 and Spring 2026. A total of 96 students from ASUE and FSU participated in this exchange. Participants worked in binational groups, completed weekly tasks, developed entrepreneurial solutions to a societal problems, and pitched their ideas through a team video.
The creation of Bridging Minds: The FSUxASUE Podcast was another critical component of this project. The podcasts contained embedded images and bilingual and transcripts were embedded into a total of four courses developed as part of this project and later shared with ASUE counterparts.
