Periodic Reporting for period 2 - Career-FIT (Career Development Fellowships in the National Technology Centre Programme)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2019-01-01 al 2020-12-31
The Career-FIT programme responds to the European Commission’s European Research Area recommendations for mobility of researchers between countries and sectors, aiming to boost research and innovation while adding to the future employability of researchers. It also supports the Innovation Union commitment that Member States should have strategies in place to train enough researchers to meet their national R&D targets and to promote attractive employment conditions in public research institutions. In this context the proposal strategy achieves this by placing the Fellows in market focused industry collaborative Technology Centres.
It does this in a manner more closely linked to the agenda of cross-sectoral cooperation in research careers in the Marie Sklodowska-Curie actions (MSCA) than any previous MSCA COFUND Programme in that it is: (i) Coordinated and led by an industrial development agency, working to an agenda of real development of industry career paths for researchers; (ii) Led from Ireland, a member states ‘with high and improving competitiveness’ ; and (iii) provides a unique opportunity for researchers to link with industry during their fellowship, allowing for the development of key skills in business and entrepreneurship, and opening them up to new career opportunities outside of the academic sector. In this context, it is envisaged that the Career-FIT programme will act as a test case for real development of researcher careers in close to market centres through the Marie Sklodowska-Curie COFUND Programme, whilst acting as a stimulus for a step-change in market-oriented mindset through researchers in Ireland.
The programme is open to applicants globally who want to develop their research career through experience in industry thereby widening their long term employment opportunities and serving to close the gap between industry and academia. The Fellowships can be held in any of Ireland’s 15 industry collaborative Technology Centres.
Additionally, a key strategic objective of Career-FIT is to address skill shortages and increase the R&D competitiveness of Irish-based enterprises. This is achieved by the enhancement of the human resources available to the Technology Centres as the Host Organisations, and the extended resource available for enterprise collaborations.
The Enterprise Ireland (EI) Technology Centres located within the seven Irish universities will act as the Host Organisations for the Fellows. EI’s Technology or Competence Centres are market focused, industry collaborative research centres serving markets of scale, identified by industry and validated by the agency. The centres are highly visible focal points in the close to market research landscape anticipating future technology trends and opportunities for existing industry and acting as beacons for new foreign direct investment. They form a key pillar of the Irish research ecosystem, addressing Technology Readiness Levels 4-8 i.e. applied research, development and demonstration. In essence, they operate as public-private partnerships, aimed at enabling research that might not otherwise take place, and facilitate better interaction with industry towards producing tangible economic benefits.
The Centres aim to address issues of value to both sides of the academic-industry link. They encourage enterprises to undertake more radical kinds of innovation than normal, based on more fundamental understanding of the technologies with which they work. They also aim to re-focus some of the activities in the knowledge infrastructure (universities plus research institutes) towards inter-disciplinary problem areas of importance to industry. Centres work primarily with established firms that have some capability to absorb technology and can play a role in making the knowledge infrastructure attractive for multinational companies with R&D facilities or mobile R&D.
The thematic areas of a Centre are developed jointly by academic researchers, industrialists and in many cases also public actors. Innovative research groups are created working on projects across disciplinary boundaries with issues that are both relevant for the industrial partners and scientifically challenging. This is significantly different from the way academics normally organise their research actives. Each Centre has its own technology/knowledge domain, which brings specific skill-set requirements. Indeed it may be the role of the Centres to provide this training through its activities. In particular, consideration is given to the environment for research management training, which is an emerging area especially for companies that are adopting an open innovation methodology. The Centres have a particular advantage here, in that they bring high quality research performers from the academic world together with industry practitioners, to the benefit of both.
It does this in a manner more closely linked to the agenda of cross-sectoral cooperation in research careers in the Marie Sklodowska-Curie actions (MSCA) than any previous MSCA COFUND Programme in that it is: (i) Coordinated and led by an industrial development agency, working to an agenda of real development of industry career paths for researchers; (ii) Led from Ireland, a member states ‘with high and improving competitiveness’ ; and (iii) provides a unique opportunity for researchers to link with industry during their fellowship, allowing for the development of key skills in business and entrepreneurship, and opening them up to new career opportunities outside of the academic sector. In this context, it is envisaged that the Career-FIT programme will act as a test case for real development of researcher careers in close to market centres through the Marie Sklodowska-Curie COFUND Programme, whilst acting as a stimulus for a step-change in market-oriented mindset through researchers in Ireland.
The programme is open to applicants globally who want to develop their research career through experience in industry thereby widening their long term employment opportunities and serving to close the gap between industry and academia. The Fellowships can be held in any of Ireland’s 15 industry collaborative Technology Centres.
Additionally, a key strategic objective of Career-FIT is to address skill shortages and increase the R&D competitiveness of Irish-based enterprises. This is achieved by the enhancement of the human resources available to the Technology Centres as the Host Organisations, and the extended resource available for enterprise collaborations.
The Enterprise Ireland (EI) Technology Centres located within the seven Irish universities will act as the Host Organisations for the Fellows. EI’s Technology or Competence Centres are market focused, industry collaborative research centres serving markets of scale, identified by industry and validated by the agency. The centres are highly visible focal points in the close to market research landscape anticipating future technology trends and opportunities for existing industry and acting as beacons for new foreign direct investment. They form a key pillar of the Irish research ecosystem, addressing Technology Readiness Levels 4-8 i.e. applied research, development and demonstration. In essence, they operate as public-private partnerships, aimed at enabling research that might not otherwise take place, and facilitate better interaction with industry towards producing tangible economic benefits.
The Centres aim to address issues of value to both sides of the academic-industry link. They encourage enterprises to undertake more radical kinds of innovation than normal, based on more fundamental understanding of the technologies with which they work. They also aim to re-focus some of the activities in the knowledge infrastructure (universities plus research institutes) towards inter-disciplinary problem areas of importance to industry. Centres work primarily with established firms that have some capability to absorb technology and can play a role in making the knowledge infrastructure attractive for multinational companies with R&D facilities or mobile R&D.
The thematic areas of a Centre are developed jointly by academic researchers, industrialists and in many cases also public actors. Innovative research groups are created working on projects across disciplinary boundaries with issues that are both relevant for the industrial partners and scientifically challenging. This is significantly different from the way academics normally organise their research actives. Each Centre has its own technology/knowledge domain, which brings specific skill-set requirements. Indeed it may be the role of the Centres to provide this training through its activities. In particular, consideration is given to the environment for research management training, which is an emerging area especially for companies that are adopting an open innovation methodology. The Centres have a particular advantage here, in that they bring high quality research performers from the academic world together with industry practitioners, to the benefit of both.
By the end of December 2018, the Project Management Team were able to achieve the following results:
1) sign the Grant Agreement with REA and all associated documents
2) submit timely reports to the PO via the portal
3) appoint a full-time Programme Manager
4) set up a website and social media accounts for the programme
5) prepare all documents related to the Calls for Proposals (full application form, guidelines for applicants including ethics issues, terms and conditions, FAQs, etc)
6) set up an online application system and assist applicants via helpdesk
7) launch 2 Calls for proposals and promote them widely
8) prepare two runs of evaluation: setting up an expert database, eligibility check, identifying appropriate experts for review, organize two Evaluation Board meetings in Dublin to endorse ranking etc
9) oversee the evaluation and selection procedure leading to the appointment of 50 Fellows overall
10) initiate contractual agreements with Host institutions and supervise the signature of contracts, hosting and IP agreements for each fellowship
11) monitor the fellowships implementation via regular reports and meetings and continuous project management and ethics-related issues monitoring
12) organize training events for the Fellows
13) promote and disseminate the programme and follow EU visibility guidelines
14) apply mitigation measures to delays/conflicts/other critical issues
1) sign the Grant Agreement with REA and all associated documents
2) submit timely reports to the PO via the portal
3) appoint a full-time Programme Manager
4) set up a website and social media accounts for the programme
5) prepare all documents related to the Calls for Proposals (full application form, guidelines for applicants including ethics issues, terms and conditions, FAQs, etc)
6) set up an online application system and assist applicants via helpdesk
7) launch 2 Calls for proposals and promote them widely
8) prepare two runs of evaluation: setting up an expert database, eligibility check, identifying appropriate experts for review, organize two Evaluation Board meetings in Dublin to endorse ranking etc
9) oversee the evaluation and selection procedure leading to the appointment of 50 Fellows overall
10) initiate contractual agreements with Host institutions and supervise the signature of contracts, hosting and IP agreements for each fellowship
11) monitor the fellowships implementation via regular reports and meetings and continuous project management and ethics-related issues monitoring
12) organize training events for the Fellows
13) promote and disseminate the programme and follow EU visibility guidelines
14) apply mitigation measures to delays/conflicts/other critical issues
There is good evidence already that Career-FIT is likely to bring about the following impacts:
1) additional career opportunities for the participating Fellows (not just international mobility): for most Fellows this is the first experience they get to work directly with/within a company
2) career progression and multidisciplinarity: for most Fellows this is the first experience they have in a Technology Center (which is multisciplinary) and in some cases Fellows with a background in a specific discipline are now working in a completely different area of work/applications. They also all benefit from additional, all-rounded training opportunities
3) strenghtening the Technology Center capabilities and skills
4) additional, innovative R&D projects in the affiliated companies
5) reinforced research-industry collaborations
6) more balanced R&D projects distribution within Ireland
7) additional involvement in innovation-focused R&D projects from industry sectors (e.g. agrifood) that are traditionally less innovative but also more exposed to Brexit-related downturn
1) additional career opportunities for the participating Fellows (not just international mobility): for most Fellows this is the first experience they get to work directly with/within a company
2) career progression and multidisciplinarity: for most Fellows this is the first experience they have in a Technology Center (which is multisciplinary) and in some cases Fellows with a background in a specific discipline are now working in a completely different area of work/applications. They also all benefit from additional, all-rounded training opportunities
3) strenghtening the Technology Center capabilities and skills
4) additional, innovative R&D projects in the affiliated companies
5) reinforced research-industry collaborations
6) more balanced R&D projects distribution within Ireland
7) additional involvement in innovation-focused R&D projects from industry sectors (e.g. agrifood) that are traditionally less innovative but also more exposed to Brexit-related downturn