Education is a crucial element in fostering innovation. The EU is supporting new ways of teaching and learning to strengthen innovation eco-systems in Europe.
The von der Leyen Commission (2019-2024) brought responsibility for the research and innovation – and for the education file together under one Commissioner for the first time. Commissioner Mariya Gabriel, who fulfils this role, is working to bring these sectors closer together and foster synergies. In particular, she sees education for innovation and entrepreneurship as a central element to create “the next wave of deep tech innovation” in Europe by educating innovators and entrepreneurs and investing in talents. The European Commission (EC) wants to support actions at all levels of education from elementary to higher education to promote innovative learning and learning for innovation.
On 23 June 2022, the EC held its first Education and Innovation Summit in Brussels with the goal to strengthen synergies between education and innovation. The summit was a moment to take stock of the many initiatives and projects in innovative learning methods and entrepreneurship education and to gather concrete recommendations for EU policies to enhance innovation in teaching and learning. The EC was for example gathering inputs for the upcoming European Innovation Agenda (to be adopted in July 2022).
The summit put a strong emphasis on the role of higher education institutions (HEI) as they are at the intersection of innovation and education, as put forward in the new European Strategy for Universities. The strategy includes a number of actions and initiatives to promote the synergies of innovation and education in higher education, such as for example ‘living labs’ to test ideas and work on challenges in a creative way (open innovation) or the creation of spaces at HEIs for business incubation and entrepreneurship support. The European university alliances are foreseen by the EC to act as test beds for new initiatives to foster innovation in higher education. Many representatives from European university alliances were present at the summit and shared best practises of how they are piloting new forms of learning and innovation: i. There are many examples in the use of challenge-based approaches to learning, such as the Euroteq Collider. ii. Many alliances work strongly in engaging with citizens, businesses and the local communities. iii. European universities are also introducing short courses and micro-credentials, such as a micro-credential in sustainable entrepreneurship (30 ECTS) by the ENHANCE alliance or a micro-credential on sustainability (10 ECTS) by Una Europa consisting of 5 MOOCs. Additionally, CERN presented some of their projects on engaging with universities and the local community in and around Geneva, such as the CERN Green Village which enables students and start-ups to test early state innovation at CERN, or the CERN Idea Square to train innovators in working towards the UN sustainable Development Goals, and lastly the CERN Science Gateway to link elementary school education with applied science from 2023.
The Summit further saw the announcement of the launch of the new ‘European Network of Innovative Higher Education Institutions’, which includes one HEI per EU Member State. The launch of this process saw mixed reactions to choosing only one champion per country. While some Member States agreed to select their HEIs themselves, some had to be nominated by the EC. The network is set up to play a leading role in supporting the implementation of the new European Innovation Agenda and the European Strategy for Universities. In this regard, the Network is expected to produce recommendations before the end of 2022, to be presented already at this year’s European Education Summit in December 2022.
The main themes for the future of higher education in Europe that emerged from the summit were clearcut: There is a big trend towards more interdisciplinarity for successful innovation as the combination of science, technology, engineering and mathematics with arts and humanities is considered essential for the development of skills for emerging jobs, notably those needed for the digital and green transitions. When different disciplines and eco-systems come together new things and innovation happen. Linked to this is the strong focus on so-called soft skills, such as communication and creativity that can be developed in challenge and team-based learning. These learning models have to be based on real-life challenges to be meaningful for the learning experience. This also plays into the broader theme of curriculum reform to make learning more flexible and modular. Lastly, higher education is taking place more and more in new spaces for learning, physical spaces like learning labs as well as spaces to reflect on experiences.
In conclusion, the education sector, especially the higher education sector, in Europe is well prepared to be a motor for innovation but, as Commissioner Gabriel put it, there is a bottleneck in Europe in rolling-out and scaling-up new ideas. With initiatives such as the EIT HEI or the European Universities the EU is supporting higher education institutions in Europe to become even more connected to society, flexible for students and open to new forms of learning and teaching, all with the goal to increase the global competitiveness of Europe in deep tech innovation.