The Board of the European Consortium of Innovative Universities (ECIU) recently met at the University of Aveiro in Portugal, where it pledged to further strengthen its innovative and entrepreneurial characteristics and define priority actions leading to the Consortium’s 20th anniversary in 2017. Among those priorities are the ECIU Accelerator Programme, the establishment of a permanent office in Brussels and the admission of 2 new member Universities, starting with entry of Tampere University, Finland, in January.

During the 36th meeting of the ECIU Board,
which took place on October 28 and 29, leaders of the 12 partner Universities
decided to create a programme supporting the growth of
companies, with the backing and entrepreneurial know-how
of the various Consortium members. The
will provide the best entrepreneurial teams of each
University with the opportunity to participate in a series of workshops and a
final pitch in order to crown the
. The programme will be coordinated by the Ryan
Academy of Dublin City University, Ireland, and monitored by the ECIU Steering
Committee for Entrepreneurship.

Another
decision resulting from the meeting in Portugal was the establishment of a
permanent ECIU office in Brussels. This measure will contribute to intensifying
the contribution that the ECIU has been making in recent years to the European
policy debate on research and innovation. Representation in Brussels will
ensure stronger coordination of the member university actions with the European
institutions, in particular towards shaping and influencing the future of the
European Research Area.

Finally,
the ECIU Board announced the admission of a new member to the Consortium, Tampere
University, taking effect from January 1st 2017. This
is Finland’s second largest University in the area of Engineering and is highly
regarded for its leading development of cutting-edge technology. A further
application for membership from a European university is also currently under
consideration by the ECIU Board.

 During
the ECIU meeting at the University of Aveiro, the Board Members participated in
a workshop delivered by Todd Davey of the Munich Business School and University
Industry Innovation Network (UIIN) on the challenges and results of
university-business cooperation, an area in which the ECIU has substantial
interest and experience.

 The
Board was also addressed by Nikki Horseman, Higher Education analyst with THE
World University Rankings, for a presentation and discussion of the data behind
the rankings.

 In
parallel to the ECIU Board Meeting, the ECIU Leadership Development Programme
took place also at the University of Aveiro. The programme participants tackled
different strategic problems of three of the ECIU member Universities, Aalborg
University, Autonomous University of Barcelona and University of Aveiro, and
presented their solutions to the Board. The ECIU Leadership Development
Programme has been running since 2003, with over 200 young leaders benefitting
from this specific training specializing in University management. 

ECIU is a Consortium of
universities set up to share information and knowledge about good practices and
the challenges that each member faces with regard to university governance and
cooperation with society. In seeks especially to share values and harmonize
positions so that it can present itself to European instances and other
universities and university networks as an entity capable of accompanying and
influencing the European agenda in the field of higher education cooperation
policy and regional research and development.   

The operations of ECIU are
organized along 2 major lines: Innovation in Teaching and Learning;
Entrepreneurship and the Societal Impact of Research. In these domains the ECIU
offers a vast programme of joint training and research as well as collaboration
with the regions in which the member Universities are located.

The next Meeting of the
ECIU Board will take place in Mexico from 3-7 April 2017.

Further information about
the ECIU is available from
. Contact Katrin Dircksen,
ECIU Secretariat University of Twente, Netherlands: