Newsletter issue 2

Welcome to the second newsletter of the Unite for Horizon Europe Project!

The Report “Towards Coalition Excellence: Report on University-SME Collaboration In Europe” identifies main challenges, motivation and facilitators of stronger partnerships between universities and small and medium companies in Europe and based on these offers an overview of competencies and fields of knowledge that are necessary for fostering stronger collaborative partnerships for education, research and valorization…

During the research phase of our project, we have spoken to over 30 experts on the topic of applying for European funding as HEI-SME consortia and created a blog series of expert voices out of it. Below you will find the first three of these blogs.

Gabriella Lovasz is the Managing Director of Europa Media and has great experience in project management within the H2020, Erasmus+, FPs and other EU funded programmes. She has delivered training on EU proposal development and project management since 2004, and one of her specialties is SME development. In this blog post we share Gabriella’s perspective on the main motivators, challenges, supporting mechanisms and resources, and skills and capabilities needed when applying for European funding as an HEI-SME consortium.

Dr. Karsten Schwarz is a Research Associate and R&D boundary spanner at the Faculty of Medicine, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU). He is also involved in the Dorothea Erxleben Learning Center Halle (DELH) of MLU, for which he currently coordinates the initiative “Translational Region for Digital Health” (TDG) – a federal funded project driving structural change in Halle Region through joint research and development endeavours between industry and higher education stakeholders. To add, Dr. Schwarz is part of the FORMAT Research Project group that raises awareness for and empowers professional to use digital assistive technologies in the field of nursing. Having collaborated in several and taking charge to “spin-of” joint industry-university collaboration as coordinator of TDG, Dr. Schwarz shared his valuable experience with us.

Tommi Pajala is a serial entrepreneur. He helps companies get funded and grow. Mr. Pajala has established more than 20 companies and raised millions in funding from entities such as Business Finland, Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment, EU and Horizon 2020 / SME instrument, Finnvera, banks, private investors, business angels and venture capital firms for over 400 companies.

Finland is often seen as a forerunner in university-business-cooperation (UBC). However, in European comparison the level of collaboration in Finland is around average. Furthermore, according to a recent national report we are seeing a declining trend since 2010 in collaboration. It seems we are lagging behind our former peers. Finland’s UBC strength lies in…

Cyprus’ National board for Research and Innovation (CYRI) has published on May 2019 a new strategic framework called ‘2019-2023 INNOCATE CYPRUS’ which aims to set Cyprus on a new roadmap towards growth by implementing strategies that are going to increase the research and development (R&D) spending in Cyprus. Achieving the objectives of a new national development Strategy would require…

In the European Innovation Scoreboard, Spain maintains a very discreet position, however, since 1986 when the first Law of Science and Technology (Ley 13/1986) was established, 17 different administrative regions with autonomy to develop their own innovation strategy are acknowledged. Considering the above, the observation at regional level in different Regional Innovation System (RIS) rankings…