Date: Monday, 30 May 2022
Time: 9:00 – 12:00
Location: Mission of Switzerland to the EU, Place du Luxembourg 1, 1050 Brussels
Event language: English
Format: In-person only
Participation: Attendance is only possible upon personal invitation. If you wish to participate, please refer to [email protected]. Due to the limited capacity, we reserve the right to decline attendance requests.
UAS4EUROPE is an informal network representing 450 Universities of Applied Sciences (UAS) from 24 European countries with a focus on applied research and innovation. Our members are highly engaged institutions with a mandate to act as local and regional hubs of collaborative innovation and skills-development. As a stakeholder organization based in Brussels, we organize a biennial Croissant Event, mainly but not exclusively for the Brussels bubble, to have a networking opportunity and an exchange on current policy topics in applied research and innovation. This year’s Croissant Event will focus on “Entrepreneurship & skills through applied research”.
Linking to the EU Knowledge Valorisation Week that took place earlier this spring, the Croissant Event will gather researchers, EU policymakers and industry representatives to have an exchange on the role of applied sciences in fostering entrepreneurship and European innovation leadership with societal impact. At the same time, the participants can take stock of the developments of the European Innovation Area/Agenda and our recommendations in the Innovation Action Plan, presented to Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth on 8 October 2021.
The current societal challenges and global crises underline the need for resilient and adaptive societal actors that are capable of finding solutions and ensuring a broad-based and inclusive implementation. UAS are uniquely placed within their regions to tackle such challenges through their specific mandate to support regional economic development by adapting their education and research activities to changing needs. UAS are thus key institutions in diffusing IP and match knowledge with societal needs. They do so by covering all four missions of higher education institutions (education, research, knowledge transfer, service to society) while nurturing the entrepreneurial mind-set of its students, researchers and industry partners.
In this context, the event participants are invited to reflect with our panel on how higher education institutions and other research actors can better foster and promote the broad entrepreneurial skillset that Europe needs to remain a resilient and prosperous innovation leader. How can collaborative research advance these goals? How has digitisation disrupted and reconfigured the opportunities for new entrepreneurial strategies on the part of higher education? In our Croissant Event, representatives of academia and industry will discuss these questions with policymakers from the EU institutions as well as with European citizens.
Draft Programme
| 9:00 – 10:00 | Standing breakfast |
| 10:00 – 10:10 | Welcome address
H.E. Ambassador Rita Adam, Head of Mission of Switzerland to the EU |
| 10:10 – 10:40 | In conversation with young female entrepreneurs
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| 10:40 – 11:30 | Panel discussion: The role of applied research in fostering entrepreneurship and European innovation leadership with societal impact
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| 11:30 – 11:50 | Q&A with the panelists |
| 11:50 – 12:00 | Closing remarks
Prof. Marjolijn Brussaard, Co-Chairwoman of the UAS4EUROPE Governing Board |