LERU Enterprise & Innovation Policy

Each LERU university has one/two member(s) in the Enterprise & Innovation Policy Group. This is the person responsible for Innovation/Entrepreneurship policy within the university, normally the Vice-Rector Enterprise/Innovation and / or the head of the TTO/business office. The activities of the Enterprise & Innovation Policy Group are guided by a steering group.

The LERU Enterprise & Innovation Policy Group has the strategic aims
*to promote an even greater commitment to entrepreneurship, innovation and working with industry,
*to share and spread good practice,
*to communicate the group’s activities to the world,
*to influence EU innovation policy.

The group follows and discusses EU innovation policy (innovation pillar in Horizon Europe, European Innovation Council, European Institute of Innovation and Technology) and to feed into the discussions at the EU level.

Activities/Topics
At the meeting Oct 2019, the following was discussed
– EU policy initiatives on Artificial Intelligence
– Captain of industry session: building a research cluster – a Health-tec casestudy
– “OECD activities to support the development of policies and programmes in OECD countries”
– Directorate for Science, Technology and InnovationResearch data and the impact of the revised PSI-Directive and the
– Copyright Directive
– A review of best practice on spin out scalability: “why does the US succeed here where EU companies pursue the acquisition route…what level of ownership does or should the university have in seeing it’s children grow into mature adults”
– Brexit: the broader UK university response and the Oxford-Berlin Research Partnership

The LERU Enterprise & Innovation Policy Group monitors the EU agenda with regard to policy developments in the field of R&E&I, knowledge transfer, financial instruments in Horizon 2020.

A paper on student training and entrepreneurship has been publishes in 2019 together with LERU Learning & teaching policy group.

The LERU Enterprise & Innovation Policy Group works to promote an even greater commitment to entrepreneurship, innovation and working with industry); to share and spread good practice; to communicate Enterprise & Innovation activities to the world; to influence EU innovation policy.

The group has discussed EU innovation policy (innovation pillar in Horizon Europe, European Innovation Council, European Institute of Innovation and Technology), and will continue to do this in 2020, so as to feed into the discussions at the EU level

LERU emphasises the particular role universities play in the innovation process. At EU level significant policy initiatives are developed and LERU has to react in an appropriate way. On the initiative of this policy group the advice paper was drafted and published in 2012:
LERU advice paper Technology Transfer Organizations a University engine Transforming Science into Innovation

LERU members play an important role in driving economic and social benefit in Europe and the ways in which the members engage in enterprise and innovation. On the initiative of ENT an economic impact study has been performed and presented in a report in September 2015. The economic contributions of LERU Universities across Europé are presented here:
LERU Universities Economic Contribution Report aug15
LERU Economic Contribution 2014 Summary – Infographics
Press release, Investing in Research Innovation and Education really pays off, 2015 09 07

ENT follows the activities of the TTO CIRCLE and other EU initiatives or policy developments regarding knowledge transfer, innovation or entrepreneurship.

Issues discussed/monitored
– Cities as innovation systems/hubs: discussion with the Enterprise and Innovation Sounding Board members, members of the European Commission´s High Level Group of Innovators and industry representatives
– Student training and entrepreneurship, Innovation manager & Coordinator Lcie (Leuven Community for Innovation driven Entrepreneurship) at KU Leuven R&D (TBC)
– Erasmus for young entrepreneurs
– University rules and practices for professors-entrepreneurs

European political strategy regarding innovation.
The European Fund for strategic investments (EFSI), first evaluation
Horizon 2020 programme PROGRESS-TT (Public Research Organisation Growing Europe through best practice Solutions for Technology Transfer), the EU initiative dedicated to technology transfer
KICs progress
EUREKA Innovation Across Borders_Brochure
EUREKA in the European Research Area Strategy
Approaches to student entrepreneurship

Lund University is a member of LERU