
The Innovation Vision Action Plan (IVAP) which was drafted during Phase 1 of the project, was updated at the beginning of Phase 2A by the consortium in cooperation with the two new partners– Dnipro University of Technology (Ukraine) and Ivan Franko National University of Lviv (Ukraine). The following were this work package’s primary goals: to enable mechanisms to foster institutional engagement for a sustainable adaptation of the IVAP; to set up or improve the functioning of technology transfer offices (TTOs); and to measure impact for institutional change. The consortium partners have actively worked towards accomplishing of these tasks by establishing new and/or improved structures and mechanisms supporting institutional engagement and setting up TTOs (UL, UC), Innovation Centres (RSU, Dnipro University of Technology) etc.
Twenty start-ups and scale-ups received specialised support from the consortium partners as part of the working package “Structure and mechanism creation to boost innovation and research-to-market”. Furthermore, the HIVE partners were actively developing new mechanisms and structures to boost their support to businesses and startups, such as establishing a science park (IFNUL) and designing new programmes and platforms to provide targeted support and entrepreneurial training to future entrepreneurs (TEDU, ESSEC, BSMU, Dnipro University of Technology). Some of these programmes were specifically designed for supporting female entrepreneurs. The number of the structures created/ improved was 13 or by 6 more than originally planned.
The activities of working package “System-level improvement of entrepreneurial education” were focused on two main goals: i) identifying worldwide best practices in entrepreneurial education; and ii) developing an innovation and entrepreneurial training programme and mentoring scheme for staff and students. Building on the consortium’s work in identifying and analysing global best practices in entrepreneurial education during Phase 1 of the project, the HIVE partners collaborated to design an online training programme on entrepreneurship and innovations. The culmination of the joint efforts was the launching of the first edition of the online training programme in the fall semester of 2023, with over 1000 registration applications. The total number of the participants in non-labelled education and training was 790 – a considerable overachievement over the 509 participants originally targeted by the HIVE consortium. Additionally, the consortium’s rigorous networking endeavours resulted the establishment of 18 new partnerships in 2023, surpassing the initial objective of eight.
The HIVE consortium is determined to achieve good results also in the final stage of the project.