27 July 2020
New horizons for UNITE!: additional EU-funding for research and innovation
A year after its start, UNITE! is awarded an additional 2 million Euro funding from the EU-, under the Horizon 2020 “Science with and for Society” call, in order to boost the Research and Innovation dimension of the European Universities.
This additional funding will support the development of a shared, integrated, long-term Research and Innovation strategy for UNITE!, the University Network for Innovation, Technology and Engineering, emphasizing its STEM nature. UNITE! has the ambition to transform European higher education through multidisciplinary, multicultural and multilingual education, research and entrepreneurship. The grant will allow UNITE! to address synergistically and in an effective way some of today´s grand societal challenges, thus creating a larger impact than its seven members could have individually.
UNITE!H2020 aims to achieve this by:
- developing a common Research and Innovation (R&I) 2030 agenda, emphasizing the common DNA and shared vocation of the partners in order to address major societal challenges;
- developing policies to strengthen the R&I human capital by, e.g., new career development initiatives;
- developing policies to share our research infrastructures (RIs) supported by, e.g., experimental tests of previously developed guidelines on a selection of Energy RIs;
- reinforcing cooperation with non-academic R&I players by, e.g., creating a network of Grant Offices & Tactical Technology Offices;
- mainstreaming our comprehensive Open Science practices
- involving citizens, civil society and public authorities in R&I;
- enhancing relations with other Alliances for joint synergies/complementarities.