Abstract:

The European Research Area (ERA) aims to reduce the fragmentation within the European Union's research and innovation system (R&I), requiring European Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to continuously adapt and transform in order to create a single market for research and innovation [1]. Moreover, to better respond to these goals, the Council of the EU adopted the first ERA Policy Agenda for 2022-2024 [2], which outlines specific actions that will have a significant impact on HEIs in several areas of R&I. These include research infrastructures, open science, transnational and international cooperation, gender balance, joint programming, researchers’ careers’ development, researchers’ mobility, and structural reforms. In this evolving landscape, HEIs will need to foster closer cooperation to establish systems that promote synergies, dialogue and transferable skills through knowledge sharing and mutual learning (MML) practices [3].

The relevance of mutual learning as a methodology to strengthen the capacity of HEIs to advance towards the ERA priorities is proven by the experience of four EU-funded projects coordinated by the Projects Department of APRE, the Italian Agency for the Promotion of European Research (CATALISI, TIME4CS, PATTERN) [4].

Through mutual learning, TIME4CS aimed at supporting HEIs in implementing sustainable institutional changes to promote public engagement and Citizen Science in science and technology. This methodology is used by the CATALISI project, which enables HEIs to pursue institutional transformation, conceiving the mutual learning as an “acceleration service” for strengthening human capital, capacity building and outreach. Strengthening HEIs is also central in another Horizon Europe project: PATTERN promotes the practice of Open and Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) by developing and piloting training activities on transferable skills for researchers at all stages of their careers.

Based on the evidence from the implementation of these projects, this article highlights the need for HEIs to broaden their traditional collaborative approaches, suggesting that they embrace a culture of mutual learning through peer-to-peer interactions to harness knowledge exchange and foster skills development. This shift is crucial for HEIs to effectively address evolving challenges. It also advocates improving HEIs’ configuration, their governance change and enhancing their capacity to manage R&I effectively over time.

References:
[1] European Commission, A new ERA for Research and Innovation, COM(2020)628 final, Brussels, 30.9.2020, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52020DC0628
[2] European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, European Research Area policy agenda – Overview of actions for the period 2022-2024, Publications Office of the European Union, 2022, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2777/52110
[3] For the definition see deliverable 3.4 of BIOVOICES project (https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/774331).
[4] The TIME4CS project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101006201 (https://www.time4cs.eu/). CATALISI (https://catalisi.eu/), ERA TALENT and PATTERN (https://www.pattern-openresearch.eu/) are funded by the European Union under Horizon Europe Programme

Keywords:

Knowledge sharing, mutual learning sharing, Knowledge management, Higher education institutions, ERA challenges.