DETECT!

The consortium of DETECT! is made up of:

• University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague, Czechia;
• Poznań University of Life Sciences, Poland;
• Slovak University of Agriculture, Nitra, Slovakia;
• National University of Shipbuilding, Mykolaiv, Ukraine.

These parties are complemented by the University of Vienna, Austria, and by partners from the other side of the Knowledge Triangle (Maker Institute and Technology Innovation Centre Zlín, both in Czechia) and the associated partners (Humboldt Innovation GmbH, Germany; INiTS – Vienna’s HighTech Incubator, Austria; and Bar-Ilan University, Israel).

The consortium connects HEIs strength in deep tech fields with HEIs strength in entrepreneurship-related schemes, as well as industry partners and third sector organisations with the following vision until 2030:

• Creation of integral innovation ecosystem: Connecting with innovation engines in the deep tech sector in three layers: within the university and its region; among the consortium and with the broader European context through the EIT KICs.
• One-stop-source for innovation in the deep tech sector: Embedding systemisation of all innovation support services, training and mentoring programmes. Foster clear cooperation between key units and partners inside and outside of academia.

The overall objective is to turn the participating HEIs’ into pools of deep tech talents with entrepreneurial skills and pools of to-market translated deep tech solutions, making them strong contributors and solvers of the existing and future challenges of the European society. The consortium´s vision until 2030 is to enable HEIs as key innovation players by developing an entrepreneurial culture that accelerates deep tech solutions.

The partner HEIs intend to establish entrepreneurial training programmes in the deep tech sector, have a pool of expert mentors for the founding of new entrepreneurial ventures in the deep tech sector, and improve the technology transfer offices. These shall be achieved by a four-way strategy, the mining-gaps-synthesis-advance cycle, which shall assure the upscaling of the Project activities from one phase to the next one. FabLabs and makerspaces play an important role herein, enriching the training programmes by the aspect of creativity and multi-disciplinary digital skills providing. The third sector partners ease the establishment of partnerships of HEIs with stakeholders from other side of the Knowledge Triangle.

By enhancing the entrepreneurship support structures and equipping students, academic, non-academic staff of HEIs with creative and innovative mindset, the graduates in deep tech fields will not only experience better preparation for the labour market, but they will rather be able to translate their deep tech knowledge into products valuable for the society. Thus, the Project will have not only a significant societal but also economic impact. Moreover, by inclusion of a partner from Ukraine, the Project will contribute to the restauration of peace in Europe.