EKA is a partner within the project supported by the EIT HEI initiative

Based on the results of the 2nd call published by the EIT HEI, the project “’Building Forward Better’ ecosystems - Harnessing the power of networked communities to scale-up and accelerate the impact of entrepreneurial universities – Network IQ Alliance” has been supported.

Network IQ Alliance is a community of entrepreneurial universities from Spain, Poland, Latvia, Ireland and the UK, an innovative SME, a network of research institutes, an industry network, and a global network of science and technology parks in 77 countries.

The project’s consortium is committed to mainstream network intelligence (nIQ) – a system-change methodology developing digital competencies at the ecosystem level for innovation and networking. The goal is to empower purpose-driven entrepreneurial people to amplify growth opportunities from the networks they build to innovate better, faster and have long-term resilience.

Network IQ Alliance’s 2030 vision, via nIQ, is to create systemic impact in higher education at the institutional level by integrating innovation and entrepreneurship into the core strategies of higher education institutions (HEIs), building leadership capacity to execute them and connecting them better with their city-level ecosystems and globally.

The project calls for harnessing the power of networked communities to scale-up and accelerate the impact of entrepreneurial universities, enabling them to:

• build forward better ecosystems both physical and digital;
• use existing and new networks more effectively;
• direct better capacity building for stakeholder and client success;
• optimise existing networks for better sharing, selling, innovating, partnering and fundraising;
• build self-confidence, responsible leadership and change leaders;
• address the innovation ‘stickiness factor’ for long-term benefit;
• drive real social change at scale in the research and innovation community.

Through the Innovation Vision Action Plan, the project aims to execute and act on the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) Strategic Innovation Agenda. Network IQ Alliance is focused on transforming individuals and teams with skills to immediately reach out to their network, procure resources, achieve purpose and objectives for immediate success and long-term impact – all using technology.

The EIT’s HEI Initiative: Innovation Capacity Building for Higher Education is a joint EIT Community activity coordinated by EIT RawMaterials. The initiative is a key objective for the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) as part of its new strategy, the EIT Strategic Innovation Agenda 2021−2027. The initiative aims to support higher education institutions with expertise and coaching, access to the EIT innovation ecosystem, and funding, enabling them to develop innovation action plans complementing the needs of individual higher education institutions.