Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EELISA innoCORE (EELISA INNOvation and COmmon REsearch strategy)
Période du rapport: 2021-06-01 au 2022-11-30
The main goal of the European Engineering Learning Innovation and Science Alliance (EELISA) is to enable societies to face global challenges with smart and sustainable solutions empowered by European engineering. EELISA brings together nine universities from around Europe with the task of defining an innovative, common model of European engineering education. EELISA INNOvation and COmmon REsearch Strategy (InnoCORE) is the research and innovation wing of EELISA. Funded under Horizon 2020, InnoCORE is one of the projects put in place under the Alliance umbrella: https://eelisa.eu.
The goal of InnoCORE in the long term will be to fully exploit the extraordinary R&I capacities of the members of the Alliance, supporting the development of joint R&I actions and the setting-up of new research structures. The implementation of InnoCORE will result in increasing the networking capacities of our partners that, acting as an Alliance, will have a greater dialogue capacity with economic, social, norm-setting and cultural agents.
We will achieve this by 1) creating a common research and innovation policy, 2) connecting our researchers and innovators, 3) enabling joint use and planning of infrastructures, 4) sharing resources, instruments and good practices on innovation and entrepreneurship, 5) sharing knowledge on and reaching a common policy in open science and in other transversal issues as gender equality, 6) optimizing out-reach and involvement of non-academic partners and society, 7) liaising with policy-makers at EU, national and regional level.
The goal of InnoCORE in the long term will be to fully exploit the extraordinary R&I capacities of the members of the Alliance, supporting the development of joint R&I actions and the setting-up of new research structures. The implementation of InnoCORE will result in increasing the networking capacities of our partners that, acting as an Alliance, will have a greater dialogue capacity with economic, social, norm-setting and cultural agents.
We will achieve this by 1) creating a common research and innovation policy, 2) connecting our researchers and innovators, 3) enabling joint use and planning of infrastructures, 4) sharing resources, instruments and good practices on innovation and entrepreneurship, 5) sharing knowledge on and reaching a common policy in open science and in other transversal issues as gender equality, 6) optimizing out-reach and involvement of non-academic partners and society, 7) liaising with policy-makers at EU, national and regional level.
During the first phase of the project, partners have done an intense work of mapping and interlinking resources that will be continued, refined and exploited during the second phase. The first step to build joint structures is to map what already exists at each partner: big part of the work during the first period consisted in getting to know (mapping) resources and finding ways of interlinking them —e.g. mapping for the catalogue of infrastructures, mapping of R&I capacities (publications, number of researchers and research units, mapping of TTOs services, etc.). This period was also greatly dedicated to the design of tools and initiatives that will be deployed during the next period (networking platform for researchers, future calls for workshops, etc.).
During the kick-off meeting, using a bottom-up approach, EELISA partners identified a series of key research lines and topics that were grouped in 11 EELISA Strategic Research Areas: 1) Artificial intelligence, 2) Health, 3) Digital, 4) Culture, creativity and inclusive society, 5) Climate, energy and mobility, 6) Connectivity, 7) Food, bioeconomy, natural resources, agriculture and environment, 8) Social sciences and humanities, 9) Advanced material science and engineering, 10) Smart industry and space technologies, and 11) Natural sciences. A mapping of research capacities has been performed, regarding the number of research units and researchers per SRA. The mapping also included a productivity-based analysis of research outputs of EELISA partners (publications, patents, grants). This mapping allowed EELISA to verify its potential as a whole, to see where the Alliance and its individual partners stand regarding the 11 SRAs as well as to put forward some options regarding strategies to be followed.
EELISA partners have been working on mapping the infrastructures to be included in the first catalogue of shared scientific infrastructures, which will be published on EELISA’s website soon. EELISA partners worked also on the future networking tool for researchers. The tool will allow researchers to find collaborators among the other EELISA partners and possibly to share laboratories and infrastructures when and where they are available (via the catalogue). Although the platform is not yet operative, EELISA InnoCORE tested the formula to be used in it.
EELISA InnoCORE worked on mapping technology transfer mechanisms and academia-industry working schemes (including industrial PhDs and industry chairs, science park model) as well as entrepreneurship and innovation initiatives. Partners are opening their entrepreneurship and innovation activities to the whole Alliance, broadening opportunities for students as well as academic and non-academic staff. Moreover, EELISA InnoCORE organised the First EELISA Prototype Contest. The prototype of the winning start-up is tested by at least 100 potential customers at the EELISA Test Space at JOSEPHS in Nuremberg, reinforcing thus the participation of citizens in testing research results. On this point, bringing society and science together, we also conceptualized and launched EELISA Innovation Talks: https://eelisa.eu/an-open-stage-for-the-best-eelisa-researchers-and-innovators/
Important progress was made on open science (OS): https://eelisa.eu/open-science/. ELISA InnoCORE designed and conducted a survey among partners aiming to map the current practices on OS. Based on the survey, we identified a common set of good practices and produced the “OS Methodological Toolkit” and the “Strategic Planning and Implementation Guide”. The Guide offers a comprehensive set of descriptors and a suggested journey towards the full adoption of OS and examples of best practices for Higher Education Institutions. EELISA partners will implement these tools in producing or updating their OS action plans.
Lastly, the progress made in the gender equality field has been a major achievement: https://eelisa.eu/gender-equality-and-diversity/. EELISA partners agreed on a Gender Equality Plan that was updated in November 2022 with a deep analysis of sex-disaggregated data at our institutions. KPIs follow as much as possible the example of the ‘She figures’ report. EELISA and EELISA InnoCORE also organised several awareness-raising and peer-learning activities (e.g. 11 February 2022 roundtable “Women who make science happen”).
To support and advise the strategic orientation of these actions, InnoCORE created the Advisory Council on Research and Innovation (“ACRI”), made of Vice-Rectors for Research of each EELISA partner or a delegated person.
During the kick-off meeting, using a bottom-up approach, EELISA partners identified a series of key research lines and topics that were grouped in 11 EELISA Strategic Research Areas: 1) Artificial intelligence, 2) Health, 3) Digital, 4) Culture, creativity and inclusive society, 5) Climate, energy and mobility, 6) Connectivity, 7) Food, bioeconomy, natural resources, agriculture and environment, 8) Social sciences and humanities, 9) Advanced material science and engineering, 10) Smart industry and space technologies, and 11) Natural sciences. A mapping of research capacities has been performed, regarding the number of research units and researchers per SRA. The mapping also included a productivity-based analysis of research outputs of EELISA partners (publications, patents, grants). This mapping allowed EELISA to verify its potential as a whole, to see where the Alliance and its individual partners stand regarding the 11 SRAs as well as to put forward some options regarding strategies to be followed.
EELISA partners have been working on mapping the infrastructures to be included in the first catalogue of shared scientific infrastructures, which will be published on EELISA’s website soon. EELISA partners worked also on the future networking tool for researchers. The tool will allow researchers to find collaborators among the other EELISA partners and possibly to share laboratories and infrastructures when and where they are available (via the catalogue). Although the platform is not yet operative, EELISA InnoCORE tested the formula to be used in it.
EELISA InnoCORE worked on mapping technology transfer mechanisms and academia-industry working schemes (including industrial PhDs and industry chairs, science park model) as well as entrepreneurship and innovation initiatives. Partners are opening their entrepreneurship and innovation activities to the whole Alliance, broadening opportunities for students as well as academic and non-academic staff. Moreover, EELISA InnoCORE organised the First EELISA Prototype Contest. The prototype of the winning start-up is tested by at least 100 potential customers at the EELISA Test Space at JOSEPHS in Nuremberg, reinforcing thus the participation of citizens in testing research results. On this point, bringing society and science together, we also conceptualized and launched EELISA Innovation Talks: https://eelisa.eu/an-open-stage-for-the-best-eelisa-researchers-and-innovators/
Important progress was made on open science (OS): https://eelisa.eu/open-science/. ELISA InnoCORE designed and conducted a survey among partners aiming to map the current practices on OS. Based on the survey, we identified a common set of good practices and produced the “OS Methodological Toolkit” and the “Strategic Planning and Implementation Guide”. The Guide offers a comprehensive set of descriptors and a suggested journey towards the full adoption of OS and examples of best practices for Higher Education Institutions. EELISA partners will implement these tools in producing or updating their OS action plans.
Lastly, the progress made in the gender equality field has been a major achievement: https://eelisa.eu/gender-equality-and-diversity/. EELISA partners agreed on a Gender Equality Plan that was updated in November 2022 with a deep analysis of sex-disaggregated data at our institutions. KPIs follow as much as possible the example of the ‘She figures’ report. EELISA and EELISA InnoCORE also organised several awareness-raising and peer-learning activities (e.g. 11 February 2022 roundtable “Women who make science happen”).
To support and advise the strategic orientation of these actions, InnoCORE created the Advisory Council on Research and Innovation (“ACRI”), made of Vice-Rectors for Research of each EELISA partner or a delegated person.
During the next phase, we will continue and deepen the work done, implementing the tools designed during its first phase:
Promoting joint research: we will launch the networking tool for researchers and will probably launch a call for workshops for researchers.
Sharing infrastructures: the catalogue of infrastructures will have an IT interface.
Open Science: partners will implement the tools designed during phase 1, using them in producing or updating their institutional OS action plans or roadmaps. We will also set a network of OS Ambassadors and launch the Innovative Distributed OS Training Hub.
Outreach: EELISA InnoCORE will keep its series of Innovation Talks and keep its presence in public events.
Innovation: we will continue our innovation and co-creation activities and possibly launch a second EELISA prototype contest
Entrepreneurship: we will further elaborate the EELISA entrepreneurship action plan which will be rolled out in the third year of the project.
Gender Equality and Diversity: the work of the expert group "Gender Equality and Diversity" will continue and, by the end of the project, we will update our Gender Equality Plan.
Policy-making: we will continue sharing our experience and learning from others by participating in FOREU2 and other fora.
Promoting joint research: we will launch the networking tool for researchers and will probably launch a call for workshops for researchers.
Sharing infrastructures: the catalogue of infrastructures will have an IT interface.
Open Science: partners will implement the tools designed during phase 1, using them in producing or updating their institutional OS action plans or roadmaps. We will also set a network of OS Ambassadors and launch the Innovative Distributed OS Training Hub.
Outreach: EELISA InnoCORE will keep its series of Innovation Talks and keep its presence in public events.
Innovation: we will continue our innovation and co-creation activities and possibly launch a second EELISA prototype contest
Entrepreneurship: we will further elaborate the EELISA entrepreneurship action plan which will be rolled out in the third year of the project.
Gender Equality and Diversity: the work of the expert group "Gender Equality and Diversity" will continue and, by the end of the project, we will update our Gender Equality Plan.
Policy-making: we will continue sharing our experience and learning from others by participating in FOREU2 and other fora.