If you’ve seen the term “sister projects” pop up in our communications lately, there is a reason. aUPaEU, CATALISI, and Accelerate Future HEI have been closely collaborating to boost our impact across the European Union. But what exactly are “sister projects”, and why is this collaboration essential?
What is a sister project?
In the context of EU-funded projects, a “sister project” refers to a related initiative funded under the same EU funding program, in our case, HORIZON-WIDERA-2022-ERA-01-51 – Acceleration Services in support of the institutional transformation of Higher Education Institutions
Sister projects share common objectives and target audiences under this thematic focus, and are designed to complement each other by sharing insights, methodologies, and outcomes. Sister projects work together to explore shared opportunities, prevent duplication of efforts and optimise resources, to collectively achieve their shared goal of maximising impact.
HORIZON-WIDERA-2022-ERA-01-51- Acceleration Services for Institutional Transformation of Higher Education Institutions
These 3 projects under the same EU program aim to enhance the role of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) as drivers of knowledge and innovation. This includes offering acceleration services such as:
- Coaching and support
- Investment strategy methodology
- Monitoring mechanism
The projects Accelerate Future HEI, CATALISI and aUPaEU share a unified vision topromote knowledge-sharing and collaboration among Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Each project has its unique focus, but together, we address common challenges like enhancing R&I systems, ensuring funding sustainability, and building institutional capacity.
- Accelerate Future HEI: Focuses on capacity building through skills development.
- CATALISI: Enhances regional and European R&I systems and promotes sustainable funding schemes.
- aUPaEU: Facilitates R&I collaboration and develops sustainable tangible technologies via the Agora platform.
How does Accelerate Future HEI work with our sister projects?
In certain calls the European Commission expects you to join forces with the projects funded under the same topic and form a cluster of projects aiming to achieve similar goals. In our case, we focused on the communication and dissemination of results to maximise our impact. This is:
- Communication actions with sister projects
- Knowledge exchange events: Meetings for project partners and external stakeholders to share experiences and identify synergies.
- Monthly Communication meetings: To develop a joint communication campaign and amplify project impact through a unified identity:
- Online campaigns with a common goal
- Participate in each other newsletter
- Blog articles
- Dissemination actions
- Participation in webinars and, workshops (on and offline)
- Joint Policy Briefs to highlight shared achievements, commonalities, and areas for improvement across the projects.
- Joint online repository and Zenodo Community to share documents, coordinate activities, and enhance project visibility under the community “Acceleration Services in support of the institutional transformation of HEIs“.
These initiatives aim to enhance collaboration, use shared resources, and maximise the collective impact of the projects on the institutional transformation of HEIs within the ERA policy framework. Coordinating across the three projects comes with challenges like scheduling conflicts and data collection hurdles. However, we’ve tackled these with flexible planning and robust digital tools.
Looking Ahead
Together, Accelerate Future HEI, aUPaEU and CATALISI are making strides in promoting open science, enhancing research infrastructures, and fostering innovation partnerships. Our combined efforts are part of a broader mission to transform the higher education landscape in Europe. We will continue with our shared efforts to drive change in the HEI sector. Over the next few months, we are already planning joint activities so stay tuned for updates.
