The Arqus R&I project aimed to enhance the research and innovation dimension of the Alliance’s activities and to address current global societal challenges through intensified joint research, characterised by the pursuit of excellence, openness, transparency and effective engagement with society.
Outcomes
• Research Community Building: high-level officials, researchers and research support officers have formed a close-knit community, fostering fertile ground for a long-term common research and innovation (R&I) agenda.
• Networking Opportunities: Innovative workshops and seed funding have led to numerous joint research project applications and collaboration initiatives among Arqus researchers, strengthening the goal of creating an Arqus research community.
• Bridging Research and Society: By creating resources and advancing knowledge on citizen science and innovative transfer to non-academic actors, the project has increased societal involvement and the impact of research.
• Mainstreaming Open Science: The project provides Arqus researchers with access to OS training materials and support services, collaborating with the ENLIGHT Alliance on monthly Open Science webinars.
• Research Assessment Reform: A solid knowledge base about Arqus universities’ status quo and aspirations has informed ongoing bench-learning exercises for research assessment reform.
• Cooperation and Change: Joint structures at governance, management, and working levels demonstrate tangible progress toward the systemic change initiated by Arqus universities within the Alliance.
This project, awarded with €2 million in the H2020 call for support for the Research and Innovation Dimension of European Universities, integrated 3 new challenges into the Alliance, all intended to foster a context to nurture sustainable strengthened collaboration.
Joint Science and Innovation, New perspectives on Research, Open to society
The first of these challenges addressed Joint Science and Innovation, through building an Arqus research community and designing a roadmap for transformation(al) excellence. The second one centred on New Perspectives on Research, seeking to strengthen human capital through alternative approaches to assessment and recognition, and to re-thinking transfer, with special reference to the Social Sciences, Humanities and the Arts.
The third challenge, Open to Society, focused on the culture change brought by Open and Citizen Science. These new activities were focused on the fields of Artificial Intelligence/Digital Transformation and Green Deal/Climate Change as transversal priority areas for enhanced research collaboration, characterised by their interdisciplinarity.
This funding complemented the €5 million that the Arqus Alliance obtained as one of the first 17 Alliances of the European Universities Initiative funded by the Erasmus+ programme, and contributed to the R&I transformation of the European Universities in synergy with their education dimension.
The Arqus Research & Innovation project fostered scientific cooperation within the Alliance, seeking synergies between the education, research and innovation dimensions of Arqus.
The Arqus Research and Innovation project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No 101017448.
