Periodic Reporting for period 2 - EUGLOHRIA (THE EUROPEAN ALLIANCE FOR GLOBAL HEALTH – TRANSFORMATION THROUGH JOINT RESEARCH AND INNOVATION ACTION)
Berichtszeitraum: 2022-07-01 bis 2023-12-31
The “European Alliance for Global Health” (EUGLOH) and its now nine partner institutions, pursue a long-term goal of creating a European University to train future generations of European innovators, practitioners, experts and leaders in Global Health. Based on its partner universities, it aims to create a sustainable European ecosystem capable of nurturing its communities - students, researchers, lecturers and staff - in an approach that combines excellence and inclusion, and to radiate outwards into society, in both economic and social/societal terms. With this in mind, it has aimed for years to develop an ambitious research and innovation component. The H2020/EUGLOHRIA project was the first step in this direction. This project entitled “The European Alliance for Global Health – Transformation through Joint Research and Innovation Action” (EUGLOHRIA), set out an ambitious agenda of institutional transformation in the areas of research and innovation. This mission focused on the need to step up international and cross-sectoral collaboration in research and innovation in tackling health crises especially in light of pandemics. Based on the excellence and the breadth of interdisciplinary expertise of the partners, the Alliance launched since a joint action plan in research on pandemics, building capacity as part of sharing access to “Excellence Core Facilities” in Global Health, and stimulating sustainable innovation and academia-business cooperation across its local ecosystems, thereby promoting the translation of research into health-related innovations and the next generation of Global Health experts. The approach developed gave rise to methodological groundwork aimed at structurally strengthening the links between universities in the European EUGLOH alliance in terms of research and innovation. The research theme initially considered will be significantly broadened in the post-EUGLOHRIA period so as to make the most of the very wide thematic spectrum of our comprehensive research universities.
The EUGLOHRIA project has developed a solid working methodology since its inception. The three dimensions announced in its initial text, namely the initiation of work on pandemic crisis research, the sharing of practices and information on access to research platforms and infrastructures between partners, as well as the bringing together of the innovation ecosystems of the five sites of the EUGLOHRIA consortium have been thoroughly explored and have led to several solid achievements.
The WP2 of the project, dedicated to the first of the three components, was based on a census of the partners' projects related to Covid-19 research, giving rise to an analysis of more than 306 projects relying on a methodology for classifying projects into 4 categories 'Understand', 'Detect', 'Act against', and 'Consequences'. An analysis of the themes of these projects, based on an extraction and advanced classification by keywords, allowed the definition of themes that could give rise to collaborations between research teams within the alliance. A thematic conference was organised on 16 and 17 May 2022, feeding into a seed funding mechanism to finance researchers' missions to partners in order to increase research collaborations. Based on a series of additional scientific workshops organised jointly with the WP3 of the project, the WP2 actively led a community of researchers from the five universities. Using an original methodological approach based on surveys of the researchers behind projects relating to COVID issues, WP2 produced a set of scientific policy recommendations aiming at providing a structured response to future pandemic crises. The WP3 of the project carried out an inventory of almost 800 pages of the platforms and research infrastructures of the five partners involved. A work of identification of the conditions of access to the platforms of the partners was conducted. Creating the seed of a legal basis of facility sharing was achieved and a Memorandum of Understanding was signed accordingly. The WP3 engaged a work on creating the operational framework of facility sharing between the universities and produced accordingly a handbook of operational regulations. Providing visibility and access to facilities were provided to the research communities through a webpage and a standard proposal scheme. Then, sharing and use of research facilities was concretely explored through the implementation of more than ten pilot research projects relying on experimental infrastructures.
The third dimension of the project (WP4) initiated the development of structured relations between the actors of the innovation ecosystems of the five sites of the EUGLOHRIA consortium, and carried out a rich survey among the private stakeholders, shared with the Erasmus+ component of the EUGLOH alliance, in order to identify the needs of the private actors and thus the levers of action within the framework of the EUGLOHRIA project, and beyond. Mapping the existing best practices to promote innovation was carried out by taking into account different types of practices and different target groups, respectively. An action plan to promote innovation and business cooperation was carried out. In this purpose, academia-business network practices were probed from the supply side, and from the demand side through a survey to external stakeholders. An impact assessment and action plan for a EUGLOH Alliance observatory for Global Health was made accordingly on the basis of a survey on the potential impact of the observatory, and an impact assessment and action plan were prepared accordingly. These thematic dimensions have been supplemented and supported by a whole section devoted to dissemination and communication (WP5).
The WP2 of the project, dedicated to the first of the three components, was based on a census of the partners' projects related to Covid-19 research, giving rise to an analysis of more than 306 projects relying on a methodology for classifying projects into 4 categories 'Understand', 'Detect', 'Act against', and 'Consequences'. An analysis of the themes of these projects, based on an extraction and advanced classification by keywords, allowed the definition of themes that could give rise to collaborations between research teams within the alliance. A thematic conference was organised on 16 and 17 May 2022, feeding into a seed funding mechanism to finance researchers' missions to partners in order to increase research collaborations. Based on a series of additional scientific workshops organised jointly with the WP3 of the project, the WP2 actively led a community of researchers from the five universities. Using an original methodological approach based on surveys of the researchers behind projects relating to COVID issues, WP2 produced a set of scientific policy recommendations aiming at providing a structured response to future pandemic crises. The WP3 of the project carried out an inventory of almost 800 pages of the platforms and research infrastructures of the five partners involved. A work of identification of the conditions of access to the platforms of the partners was conducted. Creating the seed of a legal basis of facility sharing was achieved and a Memorandum of Understanding was signed accordingly. The WP3 engaged a work on creating the operational framework of facility sharing between the universities and produced accordingly a handbook of operational regulations. Providing visibility and access to facilities were provided to the research communities through a webpage and a standard proposal scheme. Then, sharing and use of research facilities was concretely explored through the implementation of more than ten pilot research projects relying on experimental infrastructures.
The third dimension of the project (WP4) initiated the development of structured relations between the actors of the innovation ecosystems of the five sites of the EUGLOHRIA consortium, and carried out a rich survey among the private stakeholders, shared with the Erasmus+ component of the EUGLOH alliance, in order to identify the needs of the private actors and thus the levers of action within the framework of the EUGLOHRIA project, and beyond. Mapping the existing best practices to promote innovation was carried out by taking into account different types of practices and different target groups, respectively. An action plan to promote innovation and business cooperation was carried out. In this purpose, academia-business network practices were probed from the supply side, and from the demand side through a survey to external stakeholders. An impact assessment and action plan for a EUGLOH Alliance observatory for Global Health was made accordingly on the basis of a survey on the potential impact of the observatory, and an impact assessment and action plan were prepared accordingly. These thematic dimensions have been supplemented and supported by a whole section devoted to dissemination and communication (WP5).
The EUGLOHRIA project has been focused on research practices between the EUGLOHRIA partners in the frame of the EUGLOH European Alliance. The impact of this project has therefore been partly to bring the five universities closer together in terms of R&I, and this has been very much facilitated by the project. The progress made towards easier access to the research platforms and infrastructures of the European partners is an important result of the project. In the medium and long runs, strengthening structured research collaboration between universities in Europe is likely to increase the excellence of research in Europe, and therefore strengthen the capacity of committed universities to train top-level talents in Global Health, capable of contributing to the European society in both economic and human terms. Another key aspect of the project was to bring together the innovation ecosystems of the five universities involved. The innovation chains of the five university sites were brought together (from incubators to accelerators), including the mobilisation of companies from the sites and sounding out their expectations of a European consortium. Various position papers and an action plan for the future development of a major Global Health observatory have been produced. In the medium and long terms, all this work will feed into stronger academic and economic links within the EUGLOH European Alliance, thus feeding the European society as a whole. As part of an ongoing approach, the project has also developed a sustained internal campaign aimed at young researchers, and an external campaign aimed at the general public, in order to disseminate the main results.