The Arqus Innovation Fund is an initiative from the Alliance to offer funding with the aim of incentivizing innovative internal bottom-up initiatives from Arqus staff and students through the availability of seed-funding, with a view to driving innovation and entrepreneurial mindset, and also to strengthening the visibility of Arqus internally, promoting further staff engagement.
Through this Innovation Fund, Arqus seeks to establish a series of calls of different kinds to be visible both internally at its institutions and externally outside them, in Europe and beyond, increasing also its global outreach.
As the previous call, the 2025 call is twofold.
For Arqus Working Groups: The aim is to provide guidance to Arqus Working Groups on the external funding opportunities available for the individual innovative initiatives in the Arqus Erasmus+ work plan 2022-2026, and to provide financial support for expenses that cannot be covered by other sources.
For ad hoc bottom-up initiatives: The aim is to incentivise innovative ad hoc bottom-up initiatives from Arqus academics, administrative staff, and students with a joint approach.
The first Call of the Arqus Innovation Fund will support 17 innovative projects developed by Arqus students and staff. The funding requested in this call amounts to €2,106,058.00, and the final allocation is €828,430, exceeding the originally planned €600,000. This indicator shows the enormous interest aroused by this first call as well as the overall quality of the submitted proposals.
Call for ad hoc bottom-up initiatives with a joint approach and impact on the Alliance. The Arqus Talent & Innovation Fund is looking for macro-activities that are linked to major goals of the Arqus European University Alliance and the Action Lines: Education, Research & Innovation, Societal Engagement. It aims for a balanced distribution across the Action Lines. Please note that activities with a pure research purpose will not be funded.
The aim of the 2024 Call of the Arqus Innovation Fund is twofold. On the one hand, the aim is to provide guidance to Arqus Working Groups on the external funding opportunities available for the individual innovative initiatives in the Arqus Erasmus+ work plan 2022-2026, and to provide financial support for expenses that cannot be covered by other sources. On the other hand, the aim is to incentivise innovative ad hoc bottom-up initiatives from Arqus academics, administrative staff and students with a joint approach.
