NUIG and WIT awarded nearly €2m for E+ Knowledge Alliance Projects

The National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG) and Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) have been awarded two of the 20 successful Knowledge Alliance projects under the latest Erasmus+ Call.

NUIG will receive €953,501 for a project called Startup skills for Researchers and Innovators in Entrepreneurship Development while WIT will lead a project worth €998,760 entitled Enabling SMEs to gain competitive advantage from the use of HPC amounting to 11% of the total budget of just over €19m.

Knowledge alliances are transnational and result-driven activities between higher education institutions and businesses.  They target co-operation between organisations established in Programme Countries and aim to strengthen Europe’s innovation capacity. The projects are expected to address issues in the areas of

• fostering innovation
• entrepreneurship
• creativity
• employability
• knowledge exchange
• multidisciplinary teaching and learning

In total, 168 proposals were submitted for EU funding.  Only Italy (3) and Greece (3) secured more awards than Ireland.  The UK and Spain also received two awards.  Three other Irish HEIs were unsuccessful on this occasion but the application rate from Ireland was the highest since the Knowledge Alliances initiative was introduced as part of Erasmus+ in 2014.

Dublin Institute of Technology and Louth County Enterprise Board were awarded Knowledge Alliances in 2016 and 2014 respectively.

The National Agency at the HEA has been particularly active in promoting this opportunity to the sector over the past three years.

The Call for 2018 will be published before December 2017 with an end of February 2018 deadline.