INNOVA began its journey

The University the Alicante participated in the Erasmus+ INNOVA project virtual Kick Off Meeting from 3^rd to 5^th March 2021. Led by the Coordinator, the University San Francisco Xavier de Chuquisaca from Sucre (Bolivia), all INNOVA consortium members partaken with representatives from  universities from Bolivia, Paraguay, Ireland and Spain.  The Ministries of Education from Bolivia and Paraguay also joined the meeting. The main goal of this meeting was officially launching the project INNO VA project, introduce partners to each other and agree upon the strategy to implement first project actions.                                         

The virtual meeting compromised 3 days of agenda in which INNOVA project was presented to partners as well as the different participant institutions. It was followed by an in-dept discussion on the strategies to organise activities across the diverse Workpackages of the project, focusing particularly on the initial articulation of the Needs Analysis, dissemination and quality control interventions. Finally, partners debated the organizational structure of the INNOVA project together with the administrative and financial schemes to enable project actions.

INNOVA is an Erasmus+ / Key Action 2: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices: Capacity-building in higher education, co-funded by the European Commission. It aims at improving the research management of Higher Education Institutions in Bolivia and Paraguay, with a specific focus on Climate Change. It will run for 3 years and it will contribute to tackle the underperformance on Research and Innovation in Bolivia and Paraguay at Higher Education level.

The current situation calls urgently for effective formulation of legal and policy frameworks to articulate Research and Development actions at Higher Education systemic level, which INNOVA will foster through a fruitful interplay between Higher Education Institutions, private sector and policymakers to move forward on Science, Technology & Innovation.  In order to generate systematic impact, INNOVA will leverage the involvement in the Consortium of the Ministries responsible for Higher Education from both countries together with a balances combination of public and private HEIs in the region, accompanied by two experienced EU partners