Boosting European Researchers’ Innovation Readiness Level Through INNOV-8-2-CREATE

INNOV-8-2-CREATE is a Horizon2020 EU-funded project which brings together four partners: the Project Lead - University of Galway (Ireland), Riga Technical University (Latvia), University of Turin (Italy) and ASTP (the Netherlands).

The vision of INNOV-8-2-CREATE is to support and sustain a more connected, inclusive and efficient innovation ecosystem in Europe. Over 24 months (between 2023 and 2025), the project will gather innovation stakeholders and ensure a joined-up initiative to enhance knowledge exchange locally, regionally and internationally.

The project idea was born in University of Galway, where the first Innovation Training took place pre-INNOV-8-2-CREATE following a high demand from individual researchers and groups to get training about accelerating innovation, starting a company and getting funding for their invention.

INNOV-8-2-CREATE fosters collaboration among innovation stakeholders, delivering a transnational, transdisciplinary, pre-accelerator programme. The programme enables new entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds to be trained and supported on their innovation journey. The project puts a focus on its EDI and aims at encouraging especially women researchers to share their ideas and accelerate innovation within minorities in various fields. The initiative was launched in March 2023 and since then, one tier of Innovation Training sessions has taken place with the second one ongoing from 28 November 2023 until 31 January 2024.

In October 2023, the project partners met in Turin, Italy to discuss the Accelerator Programme and share experiences and learnings from previous editions of this initiative. As all participating countries have a different ‘innovation levels’ (according to the European Innovation Scoreboard), the cooperation is meant to facilitate an exchange of good practices internationally and help partners improve on the Innovation Scoreboard.

The in-person meeting showcased that the first Tier of the training – the Impact Series - attracted over 230 registrants from the three participating universities. Most of the registrants were women and a vast diversity in backgrounds, fields and profiles could be observed amongst participants. Read more about the summary of the Tier 1 Impact Series on the INNOV-8-2-CREATE website.

The second Tier of the training, the Impact Accelerator, also attracted many participants and in the ongoing sessions, researchers can learn how to prepare their project in terms of presentation, communication, market research and validation, and overall upscaling, increase the Innovation Readiness Level of the invention. Participants range from researchers focused on finding sustainable solutions to help organisations accelerate their climate actions, to scientific innovators focusing on overcoming antimicrobial resistance. The wide array of projects and foci can help researchers learn from each other and develop their ideas even further.

Keep an eye out on the project website and social media to read regular updates about the Innovation Training and its participants, as well as further project endeavours:

Web: Supporting and sustaining an efficient innovation ecosystem in Europe | Innov-8-2-Create

LinkedIn: INNOV-8-2-CREATE: Overview | LinkedIn

Twitter: INNOV-8-2-CREATE (@innov82create) / X (twitter.com)