As early as last December, the SMART and HEI4Future project consortia signed a Memorandum of Understanding to identify grounds for mutually beneficial synergies and collaborations.
The project HEI4Future is funded by the EIT Urban Mobility under the HEI Initiative programme with the aim to promote the development of entrepreneurship and open innovation skills among students in the fields of mobility, health, and manufacturing. The project is coordinated by Universidad de Vigo (Spain) with the participation of partners across Europe including the University College of Northern Denmark, University of Elbasan (Albania), Universidade de Lisboa (Portugal), PowerHub (Czech Republic), Odessa National Medical University (Ukraine), and Fondazione Politecnico di Milano (Italy), the latter also partner of the SMART project.
Though funded under different programmes with different objectives and priorities, the two projects have more than just something in common. In fact, they both aim at strengthening the capacity of Higher Education Institutions in dealing with the pressing challenges and needs of our times and favouring the cooperation of academia with the business sector to jointly contribute to this endeavour.
First opportunities for collaboration and mutual benefits between the two projects have already taken shape. The 2024 edition of the Startups4Future acceleration programme, organised within HEI4Future and coordinated by PowerHub, opened its doors to applicants from SMART partners to search for potential startups in need of training and support to boost their groundbreaking solutions and business ideas.
And this is just the beginning. Looking forward to what’s coming next.
Visit the HEI4Future website to know more about the project: https://www.hei4future.eu/
