We are delighted to announce that the closing webinar in our 2021 Autumn series will take the form of a panel discussion in which our speakers will discuss their work carried out as part of four Erasmus+ funded Forward Looking Cooperation Projects. The four projects are working to identify, develop, test and/or assess innovative approaches to enhance the use of self-refection instruments – in particular of HEInnovate – for different purposes. The objectives of the projects include, for example, supporting an enhanced regional engagement of HEIs, exploring the role of the universities of applied science in the regional economies, creating a pan-European community of practice, and developing tailored and contextualised suggestions for actions for innovative HEIs.

The hour-long webinar will take place on Thursday, the 25th November 2021 at 5pm CET. The discussion will be moderated by Rebecca Allinson, a Managing Partner at Technopolis Group and involve four panel members representing their respective Forward Looking Cooperation Projects:

• Barabara Gabriel, Deputy-Dean for Internationalisation at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the University of Aveiro. Barbara is a researcher in the field of innovation, entrepreneurial teaching and learning, engineering education and nanotechnology. She is member of the support team of the Rectory for pedagogical and curricula innovation pursuing the mission of aligning teaching and learning with Society challenges. Barbara will share the work being developed in the THEI2.0 project, a project that offers innovative tools that provide higher education institutions with powerful, tailored and contextualised suggestions for actions within the eight dimensions of HEInnovate through a THEI2.0 tool, THEI2.0 workshop and THEI2.0 Digital Badges system concept.

• Nini Popkhadze, a project assistant, representing WPZ Research in the BeyondScale project. Nini will present their results so far, including the HEInnovate Value Proposition Workshop. In this format, the HEInnovate dimensions are used to drive entrepreneurial and innovative change across a range of inbound and outbound education and engagement activities in HEIs, in collaboration with relevant stakeholders

• Jan Beseda, Head of the National Centre for Distance Education in the Centre for Higher Education Studies, Czech Republic. His research interests include Digitally Enhanced Learning, Quality Assurance, Competences Development and Professional Higher Education. He is active in many international projects, and he will present the UASiMAP self-reflection tool focused on regional engagement of Universities of Applied Sciences

• Rui Coutinho, Executive Director, Porto Business School – University of Porto. Rui will present his experiences with the RE-ACT project. The project aims to exploit the potential of HEIs to participate in the design and implementation of RIS3 (research and innovation strategies for smart specialisation) through developing, testing and scaling-up a new tool based on HEInnovate – HEInnovate for RIS3

You can read more information about these project here.