Paula Vicente, researcher from the Data Analytics group, is the local coordinator of the project INITIATE – Supporting European R&I Through stakeholder collaboration and institutional reform, a Coordination and Support Action approved under the call for European Excellence Initiative of the WIDERA programme. This programme is especially for Widening countries, which are countries with low participation rates in FP7 and H2020 projects, while this specific call aims to improve global competitiveness and visibility of Europe’s higher education institutions, creating critical mass in key areas such as the green transition and Horizon Europe mission areas.

INITIATE is a project that aims to empower higher education institutions to raise excellence in science and knowledge valorisation of Europe’s universities through cooperation and knowledge circulation. Through stakeholder inclusion and a co-design approach, INITIATE will design an approach for institution transformation that will reflect on the current needs and resources of the institution, external elements such as policy barriers, good practices from other initiatives and identification of possible collaboration areas with other institutions including local ecosystems. Through an iterative process and R&I Labs, INITIATE will generate policy recommendations to help stimulate R&I development and scientific excellence in Widening countries. The project’s consortium is led by the University of Zagreb and gathers 14 partners from Croatia, Austria, Cyprus, Slovenia, Ukraine, Morocco, Serbia, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Portugal and Romania. Iscte will be one of the case studies for the R&I Labs with a pilot to implement a new Big Data & Business Analytics Lab.

Complementing the Iscte team will be BRU-Iscte researchers Abdul Suleman and Elizabeth Reis, also from the Data Analytics group, researcher in Big Data Pedro Ramos, from ISTAR-Iscte, and Florinda Matos from Dinâmia’CET-Iscte, specialist in Innovation Economics and Knowledge Management. BRU-Iscte staff member, Nuno Silva, will also contribute to the project in tasks related to Intellectual Property Rights issues and knowledge transfer.

The project received a funding of over 4.5M€ from the European Commission and will start in February 2024.