Three New Initiatives to Boost Innovative Knowledge Transfer Concepts and Services in Europe

EURICE engages in three new EU-wide initiatives to strengthen knowledge valorisation practices in Europe.

The three capacity-building initiatives will develop, validate and apply innovative approaches to bolster knowledge transfer activities within the European research and innovation (R&I) ecosystem and help empower key actors of the community, such as researchers, innovators, start-ups, small and medium-sized enterprises, and knowledge transfer professionals. The new projects significantly expand and enrich EURICE’s portfolio of analytical studies and collaborative projects, as well as training and consultancy services in the field of knowledge valorisation practices and innovation ecosystem management.

The European Commission (EC) supports the three new initiatives with a total financial contribution of over EUR 18 million.

Find out more about the three initiatives:

• Horizon Results Booster
  

  The Horizon Results Booster (HRB) is the flagship initiative of the European Commission to boost Dissemination & Exploitation (D&E) of research outputs generated in EU-funded research and innovation (R&I) programmes, such as Horizon Europe. This large-scale service aims to bring a continual stream of innovation to the market and maximise the impact of publicly funded research within the EU.

  The HRB provides a set of services to EU-funded projects, free-of-charge, to help navigate the complexities of dissemination and exploitation. The HRB's comprehensive services range from bringing early-stage R&I outputs to the next level, developing Go-to-Market strategies, generating policy roadmaps, and preparing to pitch investors innovative ideas.

  EURICE & RISE are involved with a larger team of D&E experts, led by Jakob Haardt: “Although we are covering a broader range of different service modules, we are particularly excited about the upcoming services related to intellectual asset management and strategic consultancy for the European Commission on knowledge valorisation practices and innovation ecosystem approaches. Thus, the Horizon Results Booster is a perfect fit for our R&I project portfolio and will benefit from our current studies on innovation ecosystems management practices.“

  The HRB consortium is led by the META Group. The service contract was signed in September 2024, and the first service requests are expected before the end of this year.

• Impact Licensing Initiative
  

  The Impact Licensing Initiative (ILI) addresses a global unmet need to optimise the use of technologies and research data for solving societal challenges – without losing sight of the economic dimension. This project has very ambitious goals as it aims to develop an integrated toolkit and a network of intermediaries (=clearing houses) across the EU to introduce impact licensing as an intellectual property (IP) instrument for societal value creation with a focus on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). The project is also expected to generate new insights to be incorporated into the new EU R&I Framework Programme beyond Horizon Europe.

  “Impact Licensing is a rather new conceptional approach to bring validated technologies into societal markets. We are excited to team up with the most recognised experts in the field to set up an economically viable and scalable model for impact licensing in Europe”, says Cemre Yücebalkan, ILI Project Manager at EURICE. Ivana Vuka, RISE Senior Innovation Manager and also part of the ILI team, adds: “Moreover, we are particularly eager to contribute to the creation of a leading reference organisation for impact licensing in Europe to guarantee a long-term impact of this initiative.”

  The project started on 1 August 2024, led by the Impact Licensing Initiative, Belgium. Additional partners besides EURICE & RISE are the University of Cambridge and The Data Tank.

• IP for Open Science
  

  IP for Open Science (IP4OS) develops a concerted approach to agile intellectual property management and Open Science (OS) practices. IP4OS's mission is to build capacity in how Intellectual Property rights management can support Open Science. Besides building a new conceptual framework illustrating the interplay between IP rights and Open Science, the project will develop recommendations, best practices and training material for researchers and knowledge transfer professionals.

  “A common misconception held by many is that open science and intellectual property rights are mutually exclusive. In reality, this is not the case at all, quite the opposite: not only do intellectual property rights and open science not conflict, they actually complement each other,” says Claire Fritz, EURICE Project Manager of IP4OS. “We recently published a guide on Open Science in Horizon Europe, and this new project will provide further recommendations and best practices to overcome uncertainties about legal and regulatory aspects, such as rules related to copyright and research data sharing.”

  The project will start on 1 January 2025 and is led by the University of Kiel.