EIT HEI INNOCHANGE HAS HAD A SUCCESSFUL PROJECT LAUNCH MEETING
InnoChange: Driving Change and Capacity Building Towards Innovative, Entrepreneurial Universities consortium led by ELTE Faculty of Informatics won the support of EIT Higher Education Initiative in July 2021. The project aims to increase the entrepreneurial and innovation capacity of higher education institutions through cooperation between European higher education institutions and industry. The members of the consortium are Babeș-Bolyai University (Romania), Heriot-Watt University (UK), Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice (Slovakia), Plovdiv University "Paisii Hilendarski" (Bulgaria) and Startup Wise Guys Foundation (Estonia) as partners, and GE Healthcare Hungary and Campden BRI Hungary as associated strategic partners.
The online event was attended by nearly 80 participants from 7 countries (Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, the UK, Indonesia and China),
with all EIT HEI InnoChange consortium members represented at the highest level.
After a short opening talk, welcoming speeches were delivered by Prof. Dr. László Zentai Vice-Rector for Education of ELTE, the coordinator and host institution, Prof. Dr. David Daniel, Rector of Babes-Bolyai University, and Prof. Gabriel Semanišin, Vice-Rector for Informatization and Quality Management, Pavol Jozef Šafárik, University in Košice. On behalf of the University of Plovdiv "Paisii Hilendarski", Dr. Nadia Cherneva, Vice-Rector for International Cooperation and Public Relations presented a welcome address, while Prof. Paul Devlin delivered a welcome address on behalf of Heriot-Watt University. Finally, Crock Wesley, Head of Education and Head of HEI Initiative, EIT RawMaterials, and Dr Andrea Paoli, Head of Master School and Coordinator of HEI Initiative, EIT Digital concluded the row of welcome addresses.
The round table discussion entitled "Supporting and nurturing entrepreneurship and innovation at HEIs", organised after the operational presentation of the project and the presentations by the working groups, was moderated by Barnabás Málnay, a business developer at ELTE. The topic was explored with Attila Ferik, managing director at GE Healthcare Hungary, Devlin Paul, head of commercialization, Heriot-Watt University and Camelia Isaic, CFA, proud mentor at Startup Wise Guys.
Simona Motogna from Babeș-Bolyai University made a comprehensive presentation on what InnoChange consortium offers to students as well as to academic & non-academic staff at universities and what it offers to university ecosystems.
InnoChange consortium has just started its capacity development programme in autumn 2021. The training of the academic staff and PhD students has already started, whereas the training of the administrative staff will take place in November. In October the I&E (Innovation and Entrepreneurship) training programme, led by ELTE, will also be launched.
Regarding Innovation and Entrepreneurship, an online course called "Creativity, Responsibility and Entrepreneurship" will be launched in English in October 2021, for which ELTE students are invited to apply until 8 October on this link Non-ELTE students wishing to apply please contact Mr. Márton Bélik at belikm@inf.elte.hu.
The materials of the EIT HEI Project Launch Event are available for download:
The project is funded by the European Union in the framework of the EIT’s HEI Initiative: Innovation Capacity Building for Higher Education and supported by EIT Digital.