Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra

Horizon 2020: INVEST4EXCELLENCE: Invest for Excellence in Regional Sustainability

 

An international consortium of five universities that received funding for the INVEST project was also successful in a call by the European Commission to support the activities of the European University.

The consortium led by the Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra received a grant from Horizon 2020 in the amount of EUR 1,902,100.00 which significantly contributes to the fulfilment of ambitions in the field of internationalization and innovation of higher education within the Alliance.

 

INVEST4EXCELLENCE aims at developing an integrated and long-term joint strategy on research and innovation in line with the education strategies from the INVEST EU University Alliance. The thematic focus of the INVEST Alliance is in Sustainable development as one of the most important global challenges.

INVEST4EXCELLENCE will create the background for the development and implementation of research and innovation ideas through developing of Model for institutional transformation at research and innovation dimension; developing of European Innovation Ecosystem for Academia-Business & Society; developing of Capacity Building Tools; and implementing and promoting the I-EDUC8EU tool. Involving and engaging the main actors in the regions – civil society, local citizens, local enterprises, public authorities, education institutions (including an academic sector) and NGOs, will be the basic precondition for conducting the research and bringing the innovation into regions. Considering the importance of such stakeholders´ engagement, dedicated involvement tool describing the process and methods of thematic dialogue and promotion of innovations will be developed. This will lead to reinforcement of human resources in the research and innovation of the INVEST Alliance contributing to achieving the knowledge-based civic society, engaged in creation and benefitting of the high quality research and innovation outputs.

Project comes with several key enabling educational and digital technologies that can optimize all research and innovation aspects promoted by the INVEST Alliance. Project will influence the interactions between institutional adaptation and the transformation of research and innovation systems by analysing change and adjustment within the whole alliance. INVEST4EXCELLENCE brings together a large European educational community that will actively cooperate and maximize the learning impact of the project.

 

The INVEST4EXCELLENCE project consortium consists of 5 universities from all geographical areas of Europe:

1. Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra, Slovakia, project coordinator;

2. University of Agribusiness and Rural Development, Plovdiv, Bulgaria;

3. University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece,

4. Karelia University of Applied Sciences, Joensuu, Finland,

5. Van Hall Larenstein, University of Applied Sciences, Leeuwarden, Netherlands.

 

The start of the implementation of the INVEST4EXCELLENCE project is planned for 1.10.2021 and its duration will be 36 months. Under Horizon 2020, the European Commission will cover 100% of project funding in the total amount of EUR 1,902,100.00.