Horizon Europe launched a call to leverage best practices of the private and public sector in the EU’s well-performing innovation hubs and enhance collaborations between businesses with R&I actors in educational and research institutions. It is expected to have 5 projects funded, each with a budget of ca. 500 K€, with the duration of, at least, two years.
Deadline: 19 September 2024
Educational and research institutions are considered key places for knowledge production and innovation, and should be well connected within and beyond their respective regional innovation ecosystems. By increasing the connectedness of educational and research institutions, host regions will be able to increase their competitive advantage by fostering and possibly attracting talent, high-tech companies, and boosting innovation output in the area.
The projects under these Coordination and Support Actions (HORIZON-EIE-2024-CONNECT-02-01) should foster the creation of innovation ecosystems with educational and research institutions, or strengthen their existing links. Proposals should outline activities for supporting educational and research institutions to take a greater entrepreneurial role, e.g., through boosting innovation and entrepreneurship within their activities. The action should also ensure that educational and research institutions’ assets and vision are articulated clearly and in line with respective regional specialisations (such as smart specialisation strategies), so they can easily be integrated into innovation ecosystems and economic value chains.
The action supports co-designed programmes of activities of at least two years, proposed jointly by educational institutions, research institutions, and other R&I actors from ‘emerging’ and ‘moderate’ innovation ecosystems and the private sector from innovation hubs (‘strong innovators’ and ‘innovation leaders’), to ensure better connectedness between higher education institutions and research organisation with other actors of innovation ecosystems, for example:
– Engagement of business experts into the implementation of networking activities and building innovation ecosystem around the university/research institution;
– Engagement of students, graduates, researchers and workforce from various disciplines and departments into the innovation ecosystem, with a focus on networking and building networks around educational and research institutions as centres of gravity, and engaging in companies’ structures and business processes;
– Engagement of students and researchers in start-ups from both their immediate local environment and beyond (regional, national, transnational) working with various actors from the innovation ecosystem to experience what starting and running a venture entails, such as raising funds, pitching events, creating, editing, and adapting business models in the creation process from idea to market, etc.;
– Creation of synergies between students, graduates, researchers, innovators, education institutes, research-performing organisations, and business partners, locally, at EU level, and globally targeting the creation of networks and communities of practices in the field of deep tech to stimulate the market uptake of results and new technologies, as well as their co-creation.
More information and applications can be found in the EU Funding & Tender Portal (Horizon-EIE-2024-CONNECT-02-01). You can see some examples of this type of projects by analysing previously funded proposals and watch the video of the info session about the programme organized by the European Commission.
Having this call a more institutional character, if you have an idea to propose, please get in touch with us (cesam-gesciencia@ua.pt) and we will make the articulation with the central services of the University of Aveiro.