Periodic Reporting for period 2 - COMPASS (LEADING ULYSSEUS TO BECOME A EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY EXCELLENCE MODEL THROUGH RESEARCH AND INNOVATION)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2022-12-01 al 2024-05-31
COMPASS global objective is to build upon Ulysseus long-term joint strategic vision to become a model of excellence for research and innovation, boosting synergies between the European Research Area and the European Education Area. The Ulysseus European University is one of the 24 selected alliances from the second pilot call for proposals under the 2020 Erasmus+ work programme. The Alliance faces an ambitious 10 years endeavour that will contribute to shape the European Higher Education Area and the European Research Area, and hence the future of Europe. Ulysseus Alliance’s vision for 2030 is to develop an excellency-recognized and internationally attractive open to the world, persons-centred and entrepreneurial European University for the citizens of the future.
The process of transformation towards this European University involves the generation of both a territorial and digital Innovation Ecosystem, the Ulysseus Innovation Ecosystem. Understanding our Alliance as one Innovation Ecosystem developing solutions for specific R&I challenges from Innovation Hubs, is Ulysseus unique and distinguishing feature. The Ulysseus Ecosystem rests on two solid foundations: the Ulysseus Community, representing the helix and including the 6 Alliance partners and 114 associated partners; and the Ulysseus Campus.
In this way, COMPASS is the flagship for Ulysseus R&I agenda, so its aim is to build upon this vision by establishing Ulysseus as a model of excellence for research and innovation transformation in line with the shared, integrated, long-term joint strategy of the alliance, boosting synergies between the European Research Area and the European Education Area. COMPASS is supporting the development of strategies and concreting action plans in order to position Ulysseus as an institutional transformation model at research and innovation level. Through COMPASS, the alliance is reinforcing their joint long-term vision for research and innovation to drive systemic, structural and sustainable impact at all levels of the institutions involved.
The process of transformation towards this European University involves the generation of both a territorial and digital Innovation Ecosystem, the Ulysseus Innovation Ecosystem. Understanding our Alliance as one Innovation Ecosystem developing solutions for specific R&I challenges from Innovation Hubs, is Ulysseus unique and distinguishing feature. The Ulysseus Ecosystem rests on two solid foundations: the Ulysseus Community, representing the helix and including the 6 Alliance partners and 114 associated partners; and the Ulysseus Campus.
In this way, COMPASS is the flagship for Ulysseus R&I agenda, so its aim is to build upon this vision by establishing Ulysseus as a model of excellence for research and innovation transformation in line with the shared, integrated, long-term joint strategy of the alliance, boosting synergies between the European Research Area and the European Education Area. COMPASS is supporting the development of strategies and concreting action plans in order to position Ulysseus as an institutional transformation model at research and innovation level. Through COMPASS, the alliance is reinforcing their joint long-term vision for research and innovation to drive systemic, structural and sustainable impact at all levels of the institutions involved.
This report shows the advances in COMPASS Project GA tasks during the 18 months from December 2022 to May 2024. In this second report, main activities, tasks and results are described showing their level of development and explaining main contributions.
In a global evaluation of the second part of the project, the evolution of WPs has been successful. All tasks, milestones and deliverables were successfully achieved and submitted on time. In summary, 13 deliverables have been submitted on time along with 4 milestones achieved during this period.
The most important activities carried out during this 18 last months are:
- Opening of the International Ulysseus Branch, the first strategic collaboration between the Ulysseus Alliance and the University of Da Nang (Vietnam) with DNIIT, extending Ulysseus’ global reach beyond Europe.
- First innovation hub recognised as ERA hub: Digitalization Transformation for Industry, based at the Technical University of Košice (Slovakia).
- Celebration of the COMPASS Transferable Skills for Research & Innovation at the Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences (Finland).
- Production of six different guides based on R&I topics, including publications, audio-visuals and workshops.
- New COMPASS webinars organized by Ulysseus Innovation Hubs that brought together experts from academia, industry and NGO’s, among other organizations to discuss key regional and local challenges.
These activities are added to other milestones of the project during its first phase:
- Ulysseus Research & Innovation Action Plan creation.
- COMPASS Researchers’ Days celebration, six brokerage events designed for researchers of the Ulysseus alliance. The purpose of these events was to facilitate face-to-face meetings and workshops among peers to explore potential research opportunities within the same fields of expertise.
- Ulysseus R&I Gender Agenda publication to provide strategies and references to ensure the gender dimension in research content and gender balance in team.
- Creation of the Ulysseus Joint Repository
- COMPASS Platforms and Tools for Open Science publication to explain how to build a strong research community following FAIR principles using digital tools
In a global evaluation of the second part of the project, the evolution of WPs has been successful. All tasks, milestones and deliverables were successfully achieved and submitted on time. In summary, 13 deliverables have been submitted on time along with 4 milestones achieved during this period.
The most important activities carried out during this 18 last months are:
- Opening of the International Ulysseus Branch, the first strategic collaboration between the Ulysseus Alliance and the University of Da Nang (Vietnam) with DNIIT, extending Ulysseus’ global reach beyond Europe.
- First innovation hub recognised as ERA hub: Digitalization Transformation for Industry, based at the Technical University of Košice (Slovakia).
- Celebration of the COMPASS Transferable Skills for Research & Innovation at the Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences (Finland).
- Production of six different guides based on R&I topics, including publications, audio-visuals and workshops.
- New COMPASS webinars organized by Ulysseus Innovation Hubs that brought together experts from academia, industry and NGO’s, among other organizations to discuss key regional and local challenges.
These activities are added to other milestones of the project during its first phase:
- Ulysseus Research & Innovation Action Plan creation.
- COMPASS Researchers’ Days celebration, six brokerage events designed for researchers of the Ulysseus alliance. The purpose of these events was to facilitate face-to-face meetings and workshops among peers to explore potential research opportunities within the same fields of expertise.
- Ulysseus R&I Gender Agenda publication to provide strategies and references to ensure the gender dimension in research content and gender balance in team.
- Creation of the Ulysseus Joint Repository
- COMPASS Platforms and Tools for Open Science publication to explain how to build a strong research community following FAIR principles using digital tools
COMPASS’ importance lies in the reinforcement of Higher Education institution communities and networks as Innovation ecosystems, facilitating connections between academics, entrepreneurs and public authorities, aligning their educational offer and tailoring their research and knowledge transfer to Smart Specialization Strategies and cities strategic plans priorities, seizing opportunities for innovation in priority sectors, and helping local businesses and other organizations to understand and adopt new ways of thinking. In order to achieve this, several activities have been carried out: Ulysseus Research & Innovation Action Plan, COMPASS Researchers’ Days (six brokerage events), COMPASS webinars by Ulysseus Innovation Hubs, publication of Ulysseus R&I Gender Agenda, production of sin different guides based R&I topics and COMPASS Platforms and Tools for Open Science.
COMPASS aims to support institutional transformation in the research and innovation dimension of the partner universities, so that they manage to play a wider role in local and regional growth as education and R&I agents, relying on models which are increasingly networked with businesses and society and routed in innovation and education. In accordance to this, COMPASS dissemination, exploitation, and communication objectives, as pathways to impact, aim to:
- Spread Ulysseus Innovation Ecosystem model and best practices for R&I activities to the widest international public, stakeholders, end users and institutions for turning Ulysseus in an excellent European University model in R&I
- Engage Ulysseus community (partners and associated), stakeholders, end users and citizens in Ulysseus R&I activities designed through COMPASS for maximizing impact.
Thus, COMPASS is considered a great opportunity for transforming the six universities of the Ulysseus alliance into high impact R&I institutions, integrating an excellence model jointly designed and implemented. Diversity and different framework conditions have been taken into account overcoming barriers as:
- Difficulties to sustain the alliance beyond the financed period
- Administrative barriers and obstacles
- Different level of R&I specialization and intensity
- Quality standards and business processes implementation.
COMPASS aims to support institutional transformation in the research and innovation dimension of the partner universities, so that they manage to play a wider role in local and regional growth as education and R&I agents, relying on models which are increasingly networked with businesses and society and routed in innovation and education. In accordance to this, COMPASS dissemination, exploitation, and communication objectives, as pathways to impact, aim to:
- Spread Ulysseus Innovation Ecosystem model and best practices for R&I activities to the widest international public, stakeholders, end users and institutions for turning Ulysseus in an excellent European University model in R&I
- Engage Ulysseus community (partners and associated), stakeholders, end users and citizens in Ulysseus R&I activities designed through COMPASS for maximizing impact.
Thus, COMPASS is considered a great opportunity for transforming the six universities of the Ulysseus alliance into high impact R&I institutions, integrating an excellence model jointly designed and implemented. Diversity and different framework conditions have been taken into account overcoming barriers as:
- Difficulties to sustain the alliance beyond the financed period
- Administrative barriers and obstacles
- Different level of R&I specialization and intensity
- Quality standards and business processes implementation.