Collaboration, Alignment, and Trust: The 2023 UIIN Conference

Introduction

???????????????It’s 3am on Tuesday the 9th of May. I’m drinking my first coffee of the day, about to make my way to Bristol airport. Picking up Joe Pearce, the Head of Business Support and Emily Davies, the Head of Student Entrepreneurship of the University of Exeter en route.

Together we are making the trip to the wonderful Budapest to present at and attend the 2023 UIIN Conference.

The UIIN is a global network committed to enhancing employability and driving innovation through university-industry engagement. A group of like-minded individuals, organisations, and institutions dedicated to sharing best-practice, research, and insight towards a better future.

What better platform to present our best-practice case studies. With myself and Joe Pearce talking about The ERDF supported UEEZ project and its application of the concepts of a vortex innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem to a rural environment, and Emily Davies providing valuable insight on how to build purpose-led and scalable incubation programmes.

Why were we there

???????????????It was a great honour to be able to represent the University of Exeter in presenting something that has taken a mammoth amount of hard work and dedication over a long period of time. However, the real value was to be had in being able to listen to and talk to some amazing people over the three days of the conference.

???????????????With representatives from all over the world, talking on topics as diverse as cross disciplinary training, university alliances, ecosystem evaluation, and more, the only negative was deciding what to listen to and who to speak to.

Aside from a plethora of new contacts, and a whole host of things to think about, there were some over-riding themes running through the conference that shone a light on the common challenges and opportunities of the community.

Cross University Collaboration

???????????????Across the whole conference, we saw many examples of informal and formal cross university collaboration. With initiatives and partners such as Eutopia, E3udres2, and of course UIIN itself.

The drivers varied, with elements of institution size, available resources, specialisms and more coming to the fore. However, the end goal was always the same. Increased quality of service towards greater research impact and student employability.

???????????????The take home message being, that an openness to collaborate and share can be a powerful tool towards institution and industry objectives.

Building Trust Through Accessibility

???????????????Be it through the building of physical spaces open for collaboration, programmes and initiatives designed to be undertaken in the ecosystem, or visible commitment through conversation and presence. The sense across the community was that accessibility is a key determiner for successful collaboration and impact.

???????????????In particular, I was drawn to the multi-faceted offer of the University of Oslo and their Growth House. An admirable investment of place, people, and finance towards the goal of true innovation.

I was also inspired by the capabilities of the UTS Tech Lab in Sydney, Australia. This impressive facility is opening up the way University resources, both physical and human are accessed by industry.

Alignment of Core Aims and Objectives

Finally, and perhaps a little less explicit, was the topic of aligning core aims and objectives rather than disciplines and applications.

We heard talk of the co-location of SHAPE and Engineering groups, of multi-actor initiatives driven around fields of impact such as sustainability and the Circular Economy, and programmes of innovation driven around areas of technology such as AI.

A subject close to my heart, this approach asks us to break out of our silos to find genuinely new ways of thinking and working.

Why networks matter

???????????????It should come as no surprise though, that the real winner was Budapest. The city, the country, and its people outdid themselves in providing an inspiring place for our community to come together. And if you are in any doubt as to whether networks such as the UIIN are valuable, it is worth noting that people are the real drivers for change and innovation.

Through the UIIN conference, we have been able to listen to, talk to, and learn with some amazing people that would otherwise remain inaccessible to us.

We have validated some of our own ways of thinking, whilst gaining insight as to how to further push forward our institutions.

Find out more about the University of Exeter Enterprise Zone at https://businessacceleration.exeter.ac.uk

Joe Pearce Emily Davies UIIN University of Exeter