Initial situation

European and international cooperation play an important role at Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences (Frankfurt UAS). In its internationalization strategy, the university enunciates its ambition to better participate in international research and tendering, among others. Frankfurt UAS already successfully completed the internationalization audit of the German Rector´s Conference (HRK).
While the “internationalization in broad terms” (i.e. student body composition, international orientation of degree programs) is already successful here, the “internationalization at the top” (i.e. via European collaborative research) still offers potential for expansion: Between 2011 and 2017, a total of 23 applications for EU funding were submitted. Eleven applications were successful to date, with four applications pending. Despite the satisfactory success rate, it has to be stated that only a relatively small group of professors are involved in EU tendering procedures. The majority of university teachers have little to no experience in European collaborative research. By means of the StEP Project, this potential is to be utilized more extensively in the future

Objective

The project aims to sustainably increase the participation of Frankfurt UAS in EU-funded research projects. A cross-university strategy will be developed and implemented to promote EU competence and the establishment of EU contacts/ networks in different core areas of research and institutes at Frankfurt UAS. One focus with regards to contents will be on setting up European partnerships and projects with respect to the Competence Center “Networks and Distributed Systems”. The center is characterized by various connecting factors to H2020, e.g. to SC3, SC4, SC7 or LEIT-ICT. In addition, the Competence Center includes cross-sectoral topics that are relevant in other research areas of the university. The overall project consists of five complementary WPs: In the “EU Lighthouse”, the Competence Center establishes European contacts and participates in EU applications. The WP “Young Academics” strengthens the EU competence of doctoral students. “Region @ EU” initiates the establishment of a regional platform for European cooperation. “EU Networks” supports professors in making European contacts. The project is coordinated in the WP “EU Coordination and Structures”.

Activities

The EU strategy will involve researchers, graduates, the administration and regional cooperation partners. This is to ensure that the strategy is supported by many stakeholders and that a “culture of European cooperation” is anchored at the university. The strategy is made up of five work packages that complement each other and will help to achieve the following objectives:

1. Increase of participation of professors in European research funding
2. Development of EU competence of newly-appointed Frankfurt UAS professors
3. Regional synergies: utilization of regional contacts to build European partnerships
4. Strengthening of European research networking of professors
5. Establishment of an “EU culture” and process adaptation for the efficient management of European projects.

Frankfurt UAS is an internationally oriented university with ca. 200 partner universities worldwide, 138 of which are situated in Europe. Since the beginning of 2016, the university has been a member of the European University Association (EUA). It is also a founding member of U!REKA (Urban Research and Education Knowledge Alliance). Among other things, this alliance of six European universities of applied sciences was established to jointly develop application-oriented research. In addition, the individual departments and professors maintain topic-specific partnerships and networks.
The focus of the StEP project will be on building European partnerships and strengthening the filing of EU applications i.a. of the Competence Center “Networks and Distributed Systems”, which comprises the following seven research groups:

• Network security, information security and privacy
• Operating systems and computer networks
• Mobile computing
• Telecommunications networks
• Wireless and Smart Sensor Networks
• Cluster and cloud computing, especially infrastructure services and platform services
• Secure hybrid mobile networks.

The Competence Center represents one of the university’s strongest core areas of research with respect to third-party funding and has promising thematic connectivity to Horizon 2020 (H2020). At the same time, its research also covers cross-sectoral topics playing pivotal roles in other research areas. Networked EU research activities with other research areas are sought in this context.

Duration

1.11.2018 to 31.10.2022