University of Silesia in Katowice

As Transform4Europe (T4EU) is a university alliance of proven excellence in strategic collaboration between the universities and a wealth of non-university stakeholders from the surrounding regions in a multi-actor knowledge and innovation ecosystem, then the next step for T4EU universities is to capitalise on this ecosystem to transform their achievements in research and innovation. Together, the diverse actors in the T4EU ecosystem can serve as powerful engines for the mutual development of innovation and performance capacities, jointly fostering both research of excellence and impact, and smarter, sustainable, competitive regions.

T4ERI is funded by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme under the call “Swafs: Support for the Research and Innovation Dimension of European Universities”.

T4ERI will devise new strategies to harness this untapped potential, with the focus mission digital and environmental transformation for smart, sustainable and inclusive regions. It will develop a joint agenda for research and innovation, a joint strategy for attracting and retaining outstanding researchers, and a joint strategy to open science to all members of the T4EU ecosystem.

True to the essence of the alliance, T4ERI will systematically collaborate with regional stakeholders from business and industry, culture, politics and civil society at every step of the process. By 2024, T4ERI will have significantly increased collaboration in research and innovation across all disciplines, will have enabled joint access to key research infrastructure across the alliance, and will have targeted joint action plans to launch one or more major joint research centres relating to its focus mission, to attract and retain excellent junior and established researchers, and to foster engagement and involvement of civil society in research and innovation, further paving the way towards the European University of the future.

The proposed structure of the T4ERI project is organised around three pillars to complement the T4EU education agenda by research and innovation components:

• Collaboration in Research and Innovation – creating a joint agenda for research and innovation in the T4EU focus area of digital and environmental transformation for smart, sustainable and inclusive regions, enable access to research infrastructures and develop virtual collaborative research centres.
• Best Careers for the brightest Minds – developing strategies for strengthening human capital in research and innovation, including promotion of young talents and leadership in science and increase the attractiveness of the T4EU partner universities to excellent researchers by developing joint innovative standards for scientific careers and improving professional research support.
• Science4All (WP4) – developing the Science4All joint strategy for Public Engagement, Science Communication and Open Science ensuring involvement and engagement of citizens, civil society and public/private authorities in research and innovation. In addition to that, the aim of WP4 is to reinforce cooperation with non-academic actors, esp. stakeholders from the Regional Innovation Ecosystems.

Additionally, the project will encompass the overall administrative management and coordination and ensuring consistent communication and dissemination, safeguarding optimal visibility and a wide outreach to all relevant stakeholders (policy makers, academic communities, stakeholders from the regional innovation ecosystems, all members of the universities).

The project will involve stakeholders and share best practice from other University Alliances. One of the main outputs of the T4ERI project is the White Paper on Collaboration in Research and Innovation that will summarize the key learnings from the Pilot implementations of the project’s work packages including findings on legal, regulatory, and financial barriers, and policy recommendations on the way forward.

Marie Darimont, Donka Stephan
Department of International Relations
tel.: +49 681 302-2872
e-mail: teresa.amido@uni-saarland.de

University’s project coordinator is Damian Guzek, PhD, DSc, Associate Professor.

Team members (selection):

• Prof. Michał Daszykowski, Vice-Rector for Research and Finance,
• Dawid Matuszek, PhD, Science Department of the University of Silesia,
• Małgorzata Chrupała-Pniak, PhD, HR Department,
• Patrycja Kierlik, Science Department of the University of Silesia,
• Maciej Bisaga, PhD, Science Department of the University of Silesia.

Contact with the University T4ERI team: t4eri@us.edu.pl