Selected as one of the first European University pilots, the Young Universities for the Future of Europe (YUFE) Alliance brings a radical change by creating a young, student-centred, non-elitist, open and inclusive European university based on cooperation between higher education institutions, the public and private sector, and citizens. YUFE is set to become a fully-fledged European university by 2025, dedicated to contributing to a more cooperative, innovative and cohesive Europe.

Inno4YUFE’s vision is for YUFE to become a pioneering and truly entrepreneurial European university by 2030, uniting innovation ecosystems across Europe and powering hundreds of student entrepreneurs and innovators that will generate breakthroughs to tackle global challenges.

Building on the partners’ HEInnovate self-assessments and YUFE’s established pilot portfolio of educational and entrepreneurial initiatives, Inno4YUFE presents an ambitious yet achievable innovation vision action plan (IVAP) to put its long-term vision into practice. Inno4YUFE aims to remove barriers to student entrepreneurship and reinforce the role of higher education institutions (HEIs) as launchpads towards entrepreneurial career pathways. Over the course of two defined phases, Inno4YUFE will support 400 entrepreneurial students and 80 HEI academic staff and professionals, and create sustainable partnerships with a minimum of three EIT Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) and 10 ecosystem stakeholders.

This will be realised via the following six actions:

• add a novel innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) dimension to the ‘YUFE Virtual Campus’ to create a seamless and open collaboration platform for student I&E, with digital technologies as key enablers for the IVAP;
• roll-out a ‘YUFE Flipped Knowledge Transfer Office’, acting as the champions league of I&E and designed to foster communitydriven student entrepreneurship and knowledge transfer;
• build sustainable collaborations with knowledge triangle stakeholders and selected EIT KICs, centred around entrepreneurial education and support, leading to a panEuropean network of innovation communities;
• leverage existing educational resources and introduce a novel ‘Research & Entrepreneurship Training & Mentoring Programme’ to enhance the I&E mindset of YUFE students and staff;
• launch a YUFE-wide ‘Entrepreneurial Internship Programme’, aimed at providing entrepreneurial students with unique knowhow on innovation processes, start-up implementation and entrepreneurial skills;
• create a hybrid ‘YUFE International Start-up Community and Acceleration Programme’ to boost HEI support for student start-ups.

Overall, the Inno4YUFE IVAP will create a scalable model of a European university to support the I&E potential of students, staff and innovators from both inside and outside the Inno4YUFE and EIT ecosystems. This will extend beyond the project duration.

Project coordinator

Bibi Linssen, Project manager, Maastricht University (contact)

Project website

yufe.eu/inno4yufe/