HEI Consortium INnoVation and ENTrepreneurship in HEIs (INVENTHEI)

Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Higher Education Institutions (INVENTHEI)

The University of Sheffield is participating as a partner in INVENTHEI, a project co-funded by the European Institute of Technology (EIT) Higher Education Institution (HEI) initiative as part of Horizon Europe. This project envisions that by 2025, a critical mass of highly educated entrepreneurs and innovators will be trained by the participating HEIs, contributing to the emergence of dynamic innovation districts and favouring the establishment of knowledge-intensive companies providing cutting edge technologies, added-value products and services, and innovative business models.

Innovation districts also have enhanced capacity to provide students with new ideas, skills and entrepreneurial talent. Students are the new generation of professionals, but they can also be trained and encouraged to become innovators and entrepreneurs, contributing to the ongoing creation of jobs and economic growth.

INVENTHEI builds on existing practices and infrastructure to enhance regional innovation ecosystems and promote innovation-driven research. One of the objectives is to set up a HEI-driven European network of innovation districts. The consortium will build on existing experience and explore synergies with research and innovation activities to nurture and foster an innovation and entrepreneurial culture in the participating universities.

This is highly relevant to Sheffield University and our region, where the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) is participating in this project as a key element in our regional Innovation District. They are joined by the School of Clinical Dentistry, who bring additional expertise in health technology manufacturing, as well as staff (academic and research) and students (undergraduate and postgraduate).

In this respect, the INVENTHEI project contributes to the further development of a wider innovation ecosystem that will grow the regional economy, in particular here for the “healthtech” sector.

INVENTHEI will implement an Innovation Vision Action Plan (IVAP) built around three dimensions connected to the EIT pillars:

• Learning and mentoring programmes, focused on training, mentoring and engaging students and staff (education pillar); • Learning and teaching structures, focused on providing testbeds and innovation-driven research (innovation pillar);

• Learning and collaboration, focused on programmes for collaboration and exchange between industry, research and academia (business pillar).

INVENTHEI is organised in three ‘build-measure-learn’ work packages: designing the innovation vision, the minimum viable innovation vision, and scaling the innovation vision.