One of the major obstacles to boosting innovation and entrepreneurship in the EU is the Higher Education system, which is considered the key knowledge engine of Europe. This system is still fragmented, and requires a deep process of modernisation and co-creation with external players in order to address increasing intraEU innovation divide. Both the interactions within higher education institutions (HEIs) and external stakeholders play a pivotal role in this effort by pooling competences and resources within local, regional, and European knowledge ecosystems.

In its Innovation Vision Action Plan, BOOGIE-U contributes to EU efforts to boost EU sustainable economic growth and competitiveness by executing novel models for increasing Innovation and Entrepreneurial (I&E) capacity within the consortium. In doing so, the project aims to contribute to the evolution of local innovation systems.

The IVAP is based on:

• the HEInnovate self-assessment of the consortium members;
• experience in cutting edge I&E education coming from three Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC) partners involved mainly in three KICs (EIT Digital, EIT RawMaterials, and EIT Manufacturing);
• experience and competencies developed in the more recent European Consortium of Innovative Universities (ECIU) University European University alliance, involving all partners in this consortium;
• a deep-rooted network of collaboration within each partner’s regional economic and innovation ecosystem that will be used to tackle the intra-EU innovation divide;
• the use of a novel systemic challenge-based innovation approach (currently piloted in the ECIU University European University alliance) that covers the whole cycle of I&E, from public and private engagement in the co-creation of actual societal challenges, to the use of a playground setting for solving them in an entrepreneurial, innovative way, and the final grounding of the best solutions in new start-ups, or through valorisation in existing enterprises.

In particular, the consortium members will engage in the following main objectives, involving students, academic and non-academic staff, companies, start-ups, regional business development agencies, and public administration:

• sustainable institutional engagement, with the creation of six Innovation Hubs as multi-disciplinary open spaces in all HEIs;
• strengthening partnerships by exchanging good practices between KIC and non-KIC partners, as well as with the ECIU University European University alliance;
• establishing new collaborations, and enhancing the nature, content, and types of collaborations with external partners, cocreating at least six challenge-based initiatives;
• contributing to the development of innovations and businesses with dedicated structures and practices to support the grounding of the best solutions generated by the proposed challenge-based innovation model;
• enhancing the quality of I&E education by developing innovation and entrepreneurial training programmes and mentoring schemes for staff and students, while assessing teaching and learning practices.

Project coordinator

Maurizio Marchese, Vice Rector for International Relations, University of Trento (contact)

Project website

hei-boogie-u.eu