Initial situation

At the project‘s outset, the University of Applied Sciences Emden/Leer is well-established in the European funding environment and within its international networks and receives one of the highest shares of EU-funding amongst German universities of applied sciences. However, the University is not making use of its full potential so far.
Activities and contacts have to be embedded into an institutional framework, interdisciplinarity across departments has to be pursued further, knowledge management and the promotion of new talent centrally controlled.
To make best use of the Univerity’s resources and its three research cores (Sustainable Technologies (NaTe), Industrial Informatics and Automatisation Technologies (IIA), Resource Orientation in the Tension of the Individual and Society“ (RoSIG)) andin order to cope with the demands in the competition on funding resources and international cooperation partners, processes are to be professionalized, incentives for research activities created and internationality lived in all areas of the University‘s efforts.
Thus, by the help of the funding received for this project, the position of an EU project manager has been created who will support the implementation of the mentioned activities and bring momentum into the endeavors

Objective

The University of Applied Sciences Emden/Leer wants to improve quality and quantity of proposals in European funding programs during the project lifetime. To make this happen, adminsitrative service structures by means of a dynamic resarch support system are to be established, intensified internal research funding and a stronger research culture have to be braced within a clear research strategy, cooperation among researchers – also across disciplines – and clear incentive measures are to be fostered and introduced.
Young researchers have to be introduced to the world of research funding and project work by the help of mentors and trainings.
Creation and maintainance of European networks, the set-up of strategic cooperations as well as improved dissemination activities and political lobby work support these actions to help promoting the University’s focus areas throughout Europe and make the University a visible and well-acknowledged partner for cooperation.

Activities

Planned activities within the projects are, on the one hand, the conception and implementation of an internal application support tools that gives guidance and assistance to proposal writers at the university. This tool is supposed to be a one-stop-shop and provides general hints and techniques for writing proposals, shares text modules from former successful applications and gives insight to the most up-to-date budget figures and numbers as well as corporate design specifications and also gets used as a repository for past proposals. The introduction of clear processes, procedures and deadlines in research management helps improving the quality of applications and makes knowledge management easier.
Workshops and trainings on proposal writing as well as specific application writing sessions will help researchers to gain experience and create learning experiences.
The evaluation of research activities will help to quickly identify and support promising and motivated young researchers.
A clear priority has also to be set on the strategical implementation and the strengthening of research activities by management decrees. Hereby, appeals for research activities have to be created to enable researchers to spend resources on proposal writing, networking and publications.

Duration

1.6.2018 to 31.12.2023

Das Team der Wissens- und Technologietransferstelle der Hochschule Emden/Leer