RCE Cairo-2012

rce_proj_title
Submitted by RCEcairo on Mon, 2012-08-06 00:00
1. General Information
Contact Name(s): 
Hans Schitzer
Organizational Affiliation : 
TU Graz
Role in the project: 
Project coordinator/ Grant holder
E-Mail Address(es): 
hans.schnitzer@TUGraz.at
Project-relevant information: 
www.unchain.at
2. Project Information
1. Project title: 
University Chairs on Innovation
2. Project Description: 
The overall objective of this project was to bridge the gap between the innovation needs of industry and the supply of universities, in terms of human resources and technologies by establishing a “University Chair on Innovation”.
This project had 5 specific objectives: establishing a university Chair on Innovation in the MEDA Region, developing Technology Transfer Policy and Training the Chair Operators, initiating a reskilling program on Innovation, EU MEDA Twinning MSc Thesis Program, developing an EU-MEDA Virtual Environment and Strategy for University-Industry Cooperation in Innovation. Essential element of the project was also the management and quality assurance unit which will take care of both the internal and the external quality control.
3. Project Status: 
Finished
4. Key Words
Key Words: 
Poverty
Other: 
University cooperation, capacity building in engineering, innovation attitude, university and industry partnership
5. Project categories
Project categories: 
Education
Networking and partnership development
6. Expected outcomes:: 
Since the project is already finished pls see question no. 10.
7. Duration of the Project:: 
January 2009 - April 2012
3. Project Leadership & Vision
8. Project coordination (e.g. teams): 
The project consisted of 10 work packages, each of which was headed by a different project partner. The work package leaders reported directly to the project coordinator.
9. Leadership structure
a. Administration: 
2
b. Transactional: 
4
c. Transformational: 
4
4. Project results
10. Project results : 
Result 1: Establishing a University Chair on Innovation in the MEDA Region.
The general role of this Chair is to reduce the gap between the available innovation knowledge of universities and the need for application in industry within the MEDA region. The Chair are established as a department/office integrated in the mainframe of the structure of the MEDA universities.
Result 2: Development of a Technology Transfer Policy and Training of Chair Operators.
The project put a stron emphasize on the effectiveness of knowledge transfer as this is one of the key drivers to help achieve the economic, social and environmental ambitions.
Result 3: Initiating a re-skilling program on Innovation.
The training program qualifies the trainees to: identify unarticulated industry innovation needs and get to the heart of the problem; apply a structured roadmap for innovation to solve industry problems; take research ideas and turn them into product, process and system solutions, then demonstrate success with prototyping and piloting.
Results 4: EU MEDA Twinning MSc Thesis Program
The Master Twinning Program allows Mediterranean and European MSc students from different disciplines to carry out their thesis in innovative subjects together with EU and MEDA industrial institutions. This program was for all the MSc students from all involved universities, mainly for engineering and innovation subjects.
11. Contribution to reforms and innovations: 
The biggest innovation problems in the MEDA countries are the quality of the relationship between the private and the public sector, mainly the poor linkage between industry and academia, the poor matching between available skills and those needed by industry, as well as the lack of capability on the part of enterprises to recruit, manage and develop human resources in a modern, systematic way.
Through the establishment of the Chairs on Innovation these problems were adressed on the organisational level. The Chair on Innovation helps to bridge the gap between academia and industry by:
- helping enterprises translating their needs to R&D subjects in the field of industrial innovation.
- encouraging and supporting the enterprises to pursue innovation in collaboration with university thereby availing themselves of existing facilities and expertise.
- promoting university departments to carry out commercially relevant innovation projects with industrial enterprises.
- disseminating new and useful knowledge resulting from University research, licensing technology to industry in order to promote the development of inventions towards practical applications
- forming different cooperation models with the industry such as closer and longer-term strategic alliances for mutual benefit.
12. Unexpected / unplanned results: 
none
13.Core Partners: 
1. TU Graz (Austria) 2. TU Delft (Netherlands) 3. Politecnico di Milano (Italy) 4. University of Sfax (Tunesia) 5. University Hassan II, Casablanca (Morocco) 6. Cairo University (Egypt) 7. SEKEM Development Foundation (Egypt) 8. University of Aleppo (Syria) 9. St. Joseph University (Lebanon)
5. Partnership and networking
14. Project Network
a. Information network: 
2
b. Knowledge network: 
3
c. Innovation network: 
5
6. Participation
15. Type of involvement: 
The TU Graz (grant holder) was responsible for the overall management of the project including fund allocation and financial administration in addition to the implementation of its technicalactivities (TOT program and twinning MSc program); POLIMI was responsible mainly for the local management, developing the TTP, and virtual environment; TU Deft was responsible for the TOT and played an important role in the establishment of the innovation Chairs; UNIDO provided technical and strategic support; SEKEM with its huge organisational structure (education, R&D and business) in cooperation with RCE Cairo helped to bridge the gap between industry and university; all of the MEDA universities were responsible for the establishment of the Chairs with support from other partners.
16. Participation opportunities
a. Informational participation: 
3
b. Consultation participation: 
3
c. Decision influencing participation : 
4
7. Education & Learning
17. Educational activities: 
Re-skilling program on Innovation.
This program will be one of the programs to be offered by the University Chairs after the project
lifetime. The target groups of this training program (after the project) are the researchers, and
graduate students of the MEDA universities. The training program qualifies the trainees to:
o identify unarticulated industry innovation needs and get to the heart of the problem;
o apply a structured roadmap for innovation to solve industry problems;
o take research ideas and turn them into product, process and system solutions, then demonstrate success with prototyping and piloting.
18. Learning activities: 
Several workshops facilitated the learning from the experiences of the different partners and about their strengthes and approaches. The written reports of all trainings and workshops are available for all partners on the virtual environment for later reference.
19. Educational activities
a. Theory: 
1
b. Discussion: 
2
c. Interactive and Multidimensional "action oriented education": 
7
8. Research Integration
20. Research & Development (R&D): 
The project facilitated the more applied research of universities and helped to translate innovation needs of industries to actual research outlines.
21. Research partners: 
Pls see no 13 "Core partners"
Type: 
Project Reports
Country: 
Egypt
Region: 
Africa and Middle East
Community: 
Higher Education
Issue: 
Higher Education
Country: 
Egypt