European Excellence Initiative: Acceleration services in support of universities

ExpectedOutcome:

In line with the objectives of the European strategy for universities, projects are expected to contribute to the following outcomes in relation to acceleration services in support of the institutional transformation of higher education institutions (HEI) in the research and innovation dimension (R&I):

• Access for higher education institutions to a range of tailor-made coaching services, expertise, (virtual) meeting platforms or tools, and seed funding at any stage of development of institutional change in the R&I dimension;
• Successful institutional reform and upgrade of higher education institutions in the R&I dimension (empowerment to be actors of change);
• Connection of higher education institutions with peers and other ecosystem actors, as well as with investors and public funders;
• Progress of the user groups of the acceleration services in institutional change in the R&I dimension and strengthened R&I capacities in higher education institutions, measured through a monitoring mechanism; in particular,
  • Modernised research careers in higher education sector, interoperable with other sectors;
  • Accelerated digital transition of the R& I dimension of the higher education sector across the entire ERA;
  • Increased global competitiveness of research in higher education institutions by strongly increased critical mass in terms of upskilling, knowledge creation and knowledge circulation in the green transition and other key European policy areas such as European Missions;
  • Contribution to implementation of the relevant ERA Policy Agenda actions (Action 13) in the higher education sector in general.
• Policy feedback to the European Commission and Member States on the acceleration services, and widespread dissemination of the pilot results to other target groups.

Scope:

The overall aim of the Higher Education Institutions acceleration services is to help institutions to make progress in institutional change in ERA priority areas, such as strengthening research careers, gender equality plans and reform of career and research assessment, mainstreaming of open science, institutional strategy development in R&I, etc. The acceleration services will support institutions in these efforts, by creating a shared knowledge base, coaching service and virtual meeting place to enable the connection with peers, as well by providing seed funding to users. The acceleration services should involve large user groups (either individual HEI, networks or alliances of universities and surrounding ecosystem actors, or umbrella organisations of HEI).

Projects should be aligned with assessment tools such as HEInnovate and HRS4R. Complementarity with existing similar tools, such as those funded under WIDERA 2021-2022 and EIT’s HEI Initiative^[1] will be taken into account. Experts, tools and platforms generated by previous projects, such as those supported under Horizon 2020 Science with and for Society, should be taken into account.

[1]www.eit-hei.eu; EIT HEI Initiative has been designed with the aim of increasing the innovation and entrepreneurial capacity in higher education by bringing together HEIs in innovation value chains and ecosystems across Europe.