On July 14th 2022, the DISCO project held its virtual kick-off meeting in hybrid format, with some partners and the EIT Project Officer participating online, while representatives of the Crakow University of Economics and the University of Lviv were meeting in Crakow, Poland.
DISCO | Developing Innovative Sustainable Cooperation Opportunities is a project funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) to strengthen the innovation capacity of European higher education institutions (HEIs) through shared learning, cooperation and flow of knowledge. It is coordinated by the Cracrow University of Economics (Poland) and gathers as partners the Liviv Polytechnic National University (Ukraine), the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (Switzerland) the non-profit organisation European Centre for Women and Technology (Norway) and the SME SHINE 2Europe (Portugal), representing the broader innovation ecosystem.
DISCO will boost the development of innovation and entrepreneurship skills, through student training, advisory and coaching support for start-ups and scale-ups, as well as structured capacity-building among scientific and non-scientific staff of participating HEIs. The project will achieve its aims by designing and creating new forms of cooperation and experimentation through innovation labs, an observatory and the development of a common massive open online course, all with a view to supporting the development of a sense of initiative and entrepreneurial mindsets across the EU, training and mentoring around 1200 people.
The kick-off meeting was followed by the LIMITLESS® Innovation Bootcamp for DISCO partners on the 14th and15th July, with the aim to:
- Increase the innovation and entrepreneurship capacities of the professional and support staff of the European higher education institutions and other project partners.
- Exchange good practices in innovation and entrepreneurship support among project partners.
- Exchange first ideas for further collaboration in the project within the proposed Innovation Vision Action Plan.
On the first day of training, in an informal setting inspired by the examples from and beyond Luxembourg, participants learned about collaborative innovation as a framework for innovating with and for public administration and society. Specifically, the methodologies of innovation labs, as well as social impact measurement, were discussed as effective approaches to mobilise public administrations, citizens and other stakeholders in collaborative innovation processes.
On day two, focused on the specific ambitions of the DISCO project as reflected in its IVAP, participants learned about the ways in which HEIs innovate themselves as well as act as innovation and entrepreneurship enablers for other actors, from students, through public, private and third sectors, to community and society at large.