Mag. Christine Pirhofer

Assistant & Project Manager +43 512 2070 - 1821 christine.pirhofer@mci.edu

Professional work experience

10/2006 - present
01/2006 - 10/2006
04/2005 - 11/2005
09/2004 - 02/2005
12/2003 - 11/2004
05/2003 - 11/2003

Education

01/2008 - 12/2009
Certified Project Manager (pma Project Management Austria) - MCI Management Center Innsbruck / Academy for Law, Taxation and Economics - Vienna
Project Management
01/1994 - 12/2002
Mag. phil. - Leopold-Franzens-University Innsbruck
Studies in Political Science and History; specialization: European integration

Practice related research and developmental project

01/2021 - 12/2023
WP4 Member (together with A. Zehrer, D. Wieser and G. Glowka): Development of the EICAA Competence Development Kit (CDK) - MCI
EICAA - Entrepreneurship and Intrapreneurship Competences Assessment Alliance (Erasmus+ funded project). The EICAA project aims to develop a digital platform for the evaluation and development of entrepreneurial skills of students and employees and thereby to promote and improve their entrepreneurship and innovation skills. For this purpose, a survey has been created to measure entrepreneurship and innovation skills, the development of which is based on the internationally accepted EntreComp Framework of the EU Commission. For each of the competencies, appropriate teaching modules have been developed for lecturers, which are applied in a practical manner both in the higher education sector for students and in the business sector for companies and their employees. The survey of entrepreneurship and innovation skills has been tested in advance and piloted on a large scale at universities and companies. The big advantage of the digital platform is that students and employees can easily carry out a self-assessment of their entrepreneurial skills and receive a clear analysis of their skills at group level, which shows them those skills where there is a need to catch up. Based on this, module recommendations from the EICAA Competence Development Kit (CDK) are suggested to students and employees, which can easily be integrated into existing curricula or training courses. Website: https://www.eicaa.eu/
09/2018 - 08/2021
IO4 Member (together with A. Zehrer and D.Wieser): Development of the PIETE Teaching Compendium - MCI
PIETE - Partnership for Initial Entrepreneurship Teacher Education (Erasmus+ funded project). In the Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan the European Commission identified education as a main pillar for catalyzing entrepreneurship inside the European Union. Higher education institutions (HEIs) take on a central role for the deliverance of entrepreneurship education (EE) and thus for developing entrepreneurial competences that are considered key for lifelong learning. The PIETE project addresses deficiencies in the development of entrepreneurial competences within ITE programs of HEIs. The PIETE project aims to foster entrepreneurial skills and competence development in initial teacher education (ITE) at HEIs and thus contribute to the fulfillment of the Entrepreneurship Action Plan 2020 of the European Commission. This will be achieved through the development of a set of resources that raise awareness for the importance of entrepreneurial thinking and acting in ITE through the sensitization of ITE educators create a state-of-the-art understanding among ITE educators for relevant skills and competences that can be acquired through the application of EE as understood by the EntreComp Framework. Furthermore, also to provide a better basis for entrepreneurial skills acquisition of ITE students to become entrepreneurial teachers in their professional career. The project thereby directly contributes to the development of entrepreneurial teachers by developing the PIETE Teaching Compendium which offers educators a clear guidance for the concise catalogue of curricular activities that can be attached to existing or used for the establishment of entirely new lectures. Website: https://www.entrepreneurialteachers.eu/
10/2016 - 09/2018
IO3 Member (together with B. Ebersberger and D. Wieser): Development of the EEE Teaching Toolkit - MCI
EEE - Embedded Entrepreneurship Education (Erasmus+ funded project). Increasing young people's entrepreneurship skills is increasingly seen as a way to drive economic growth while also addressing pressing social issues. The last five years have seen growth in the number of HEIs (higher education institutions) offering entrepreneurship education of some kind. Nevertheless, absolute levels of student entrepreneurship remain low and lag far behind competitors. However, HEIs' motivation and ability to provide entrepreneurship education is not universal and initiatives vary enormously. For these reasons, the project "Embedding Entrepreneurship Education" has been designed with a clear objective: to increase the proportion of HEI students acquiring an entrepreneurial mind-set and engaging in early stage entrepreneurial activity. Based on 23 innovative teaching modules, the EEE Teaching Toolkit - an innovative teaching compendium for teaching entrepreneurial skills in HEIs - follows a so-called modular principle with the possibility of combining modules in various ways to enrich existing courses or create new courses, seminars, etc. The aim is to promote innovative and entrepreneurial thinking as well as start-up initiatives in the higher education sector in an interdisciplinary and practical manner. The toolkit is structurally based on the Entrepreneurship Competence Framework (EntreComp) of the European Union. Website: https://eee-project.org/
07/2012 - 06/2015
WP5.3 Member (together with B. Ebersberger): Development of e-learning training modules on innovative financial instruments for estimated 200 hours of self-learning online-training courses - MCI
FIDIAS - Innovative Financial Instruments for Sustainable Development in Alpine Space (EU funded project with 11 project partners). Starting from the capitalization of partners' experiences, and considering the high "eco-innovation" potential of the Alpine Space, the FIDIAS project aims to provide Local Regional Authorities, green-tech SMEs and Local Financial Operators of the Alpine Space with the sufficient know-how to exploit the opportunities coming from the new EU regulations on financial instruments, in order to reinforce existing processes of local development acting through a bottom-up approach. By considering the encouragement coming from the European Commission towards the use of financial instruments as leverage of public funding, the project intends to promote innovative mechanisms, financial instruments and services able to attract private and public capital and to support sustainable development and competitiveness in alpine territories. The project goal is to reinforce local, regional development plans and entrepreneurship through the implementation of innovative financial instruments and services. Website: www.fidias.eu
01/2010 - 04/2012
09/2007 - 04/2009
02/2007 - 12/2009

Peer reviewed journal article

Zehrer, A., Glowka, G., Wieser, D., Pirhofer, C. (2025). Coping with uncertainty, ambiguity and risk – a crucial future competence in entrepreneurship education. International Marketing Journal of Culture and Tourism, 6, 48-54. https://doi.org/10.33001/18355/IMJCT0817