Our two-year project is coming to an end and partners met on June 11th to June 12th in Ås Norway to wrap up the project and share our insights and discuss the path forward.
Some of the highlights and presenters from the conference:
- Jorun Pedersen from Ard Innovation kicked off the conference with a tech transfer workshop offering practical advice to other partners on licensing, methods and engagement of researchers and how to support tech transfer.
- Per Servais from Linnaeus University discussed innovation in university context and its interaction with regional ecosystem and clusters, alliances and smart specialization policies. The NOBALIS project succeeded with its interdisciplinary focus and developing entrepreneurial education, but it also demonstrated many challenges head in the path towards entrepreneurial universities.
- An important aspect for the project was the review on each HEI’s innovation ecosystem. Dina Popluga from Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technology summed up the results and comparisons. The main takeaway was that although each university has its innovation ecosystem, the common challenges and solution emerged. HEIs struggled with coordination between the internal and external actors and commercialization of innovative ideas and incentives for supporting student and staff activities.
- Randi Tax from Vis Innovation brought external and wider perspectives reflecting on knowledge and tech transfer and the third mission of universities. There is a need for a new mindset as we have reached the third generation of innovation and commercialization policies that will affect the TTOs operations.
- Jorun Pedersen from Ard Innovation held a workshop on how to implement new innovation systems in universities. This requires reshaping of various policies as well as higher research visibility. More active participation in public debate and public opinion formation, well planned IP creation and management, various forms of support for students and staff, better use of non-academics, competence building were only some of the potential solutions discussed.
- Jan Aidemark from Linnaeus University demonstrated AI use for support of innovation. The AI-s that can be utilized for building innovation projects has grown rapidly. There are a lot of choices for writing, coding, research, social media management, content creation, images, video and audio for a business idea that can be very successfully incorporated into teaching of innovation.
- Per Anders Langendahl from Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences highlighted the results from the Innovation and Entrepreneurship modules and teacher training in NOBALIS project. Partners combined peer- to-peer training, review of existing quality assurance practices, development of modules and workshops addressing competences needed for innovation.
- Dina Popluga from Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technology shared experience from joint student- academic start-up team and their participation at the NOBALIS Entrepreneurial and Innovation Capacity Development Programme. A mixed team provided clear value for all actors with improved communication and engagement of different innovation ecosystem actors ad mentoring options.
- Merey Beisembayev from the Baltic Innovation Agency reflected on the outcomes of the NOBALIS Entrepreneurial and Innovation Capacity Development Programme in which three rounds of pre-incubation programme for student and staff teams were held. There was an uptick of students’ interest as as 35 ideas were submitted to the Idea Hackathon in the latest program round in the spring of 2024 compared with 24 teams in second round in the fall of 2023. 10 teams finished the program in spring 2024 pitching at the Demo Day. Vidoes for student start-ups who participated in the EICD programme highlighted their journey and reflections on what they gained from the program.
- Anne Põder from Estonian University of Life Sciences reflected on the lessons learnt from the development of student support. The NOBALIS project provided benefits such as bridging the gap between various pre-incubation programs, attracting new students and teams. But it also faced the challenges related to attracting staff teams, limited time frame for idea development, lack of technical knowledge in case of students who just started their university studies, follow-up options.
The project has created a new network and a good foundation for institutional learning. The aim of NOBALIS partners is to utilize it as well as to explore further cooperation possibilities.
Project NOBALIS was part of HEI Initiative: Innovation Capacity Building for Higher Education and was supported by EIT Food and funded by the European Union.