In March 2024, the project Boosting INGENIUM for Excellence (BI4E) has completed 18 of its 36-month lifespan. The 8 partner universities, including Medical University-Sofia, have fulfilled half of their commitments to the European Commission, the technical work carried out has facilitated progress in all areas of the project’s focus: strategic planning, institutional transformation, governance, research cooperation, entrepreneurship, and technology transfer. In March 2023 BI4E was publicly unveiled with its own visual identity followed by the project’s communication channels: the website and the LinkedIn profile.
The Study Visits are a central element of BI4E that connects the university communities of its two Widening Partners, the Technical University of Iasi (Romania) and the Medical University of Sofia (Bulgaria), with the communities of the other 6 partner universities. The aim is to foster an exchange of knowledge and experience on innovation, strategic planning, governance, and institutional transformation over several days. The initial outcomes were the Study Visits coordinated by the University of Rouen- Normandy and hosted by the University of Skövde (Sweden) and the Technological University of Munster (Ireland) in June 2023. Next study visits already took place at the universities of Karlsruhe and Chieti-Pescara in June 2024, with a focus on governance.
In December 2023, Boosting INGENIUM for Excellence launched CONNECT, a new platform powered by artificial intelligence that aims to enhance collaborative research within the INGENIUM network. Developed at the University G. D’Annunzio, the platform has been successfully used to form new inter-university research groups. Thanks to CONNECT, 80 new research groups have been introduced.
Within Work Package 7, Communication & Dissemination, coordinated by the University of Oviedo, the design of the project’s visual identity and its communication strategy, and the successful organisation of several local info-day events stand out. These are local information events that aim to communicate the progress and results of the project, as well as raise awareness about the main challenges that European HEIs are facing. The Medical University-Sofia organised a local info day in April 2023 dedicated to green policy and issues.
Coordinated by the University of Rouen-Normandy, the first meeting of the Strategic Advisory Council was organised in September 2023. The meeting resulted in the unanimous election of Ms. Anna Runnemalm, from the University of Skövde, as president of the Council. Work Package 2, lead by the University of Rouen-Normandy, was responsible for identifying, exchanging, and transferring best practices in strategic planning through a survey that was developed over several months.
Coordinated by the Medical University of Sofia, Work Package 3 prepared a survey on Good Practices in Governance and Institutional Transformation in the partner universities. This survey collected information related to university governance and management in the partner HEIs in order to highlight the obstacles and barriers to institutional transformation and improvement. This deliverable helped to identify the specific regulatory, organisational, administrative, and political inconveniences suffered by higher education institutions in the Widening Countries.
Coordinated by the University of Chieti-Pescara, Work Package 4 has reached two milestones: the Identification of highly performing research groups and key research areas in the partner Universities and the development of the Open Cloud Platform CONNECT.
Coordinated by Munster Technological University, Work Package 5 has completed the key deliverable “Good Practices in Entrepreneurship in the University Environment”. As a result of this work, MTU has identified case studies on technology transfer in the BI4E partner universities and has presented the good practices in an e-booklet titled “Good Practice in Entrepreneurship in the University Environment”.
Led by the Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences, WP6 has successfully concluded a study on incentives and obstacles to teachers’ and researchers’ careers. This study, which involved a survey across seven of the eight partner universities, yielded insightful data about the aspirations and hurdles encountered by the academic community at the BI4E partner universities.
