The Autonomous University of Barcelona hosted on 26 May 2021 the fourth stakeholder meeting of the InnoHEIs project in Catalonia, where 17 representatives of 15 TECNIO research and innovation groups participated. TECNIO groups are those applied research structures that have been validated by the Government of Catalonia, including a seal of quality proving that they are the most active centres when it comes to projects with the industry, making them key agents to understand the challenges and opportunities around the use of services and infrastructures of HEIs by enterprises.
In this occasion, the invited centres are those outside the city of Barcelona (which clusters half of them), for it is relevant to have a territorial approach to the topic, not just the centralised vision in the capital. Thanks to this, different issues and challenges linked to the collaboration HEIs/R&I centres and companies in different parts of the territory, with their specific frameworks, were analysed.
The discussion turned around the identification of the main barriers preventing companies making use of HEIs/centres infrastructures under the current (or just finished) instruments and programmes, and assessing which potential new initiatives could support future improvements, considering the current context, in which the new ERDF programme and the NexGenerationEU are being discussed along the own Catalan funds, as well as state-wide ones.
Conclusions and main considerations will be shared with the managing authority. In the last week of May 2021 it was created the Ministry of Universities and Research within the newly shaped Government of Catalonia, which kicked off on 25 May. Within this new structure, new strategies and plans will be proposed within the next few months, which offers InnoHEIs, and the learning coming from it, the possibility to actively participate in adding value to those.
