Alliance for Life Sciences: From Strategies to Actions in Central and Eastern Europe

HORIZON 2020

Boosting health research and innovation

Research and innovation (R&I) plays a pivotal role in addressing Europe’s societal challenges including ensuring health and well-being of the citizens. Differences still persist in R&I performance between countries despite significant investments. In the health sector, the R&I gap can profoundly affect the quality of health and life of European citizens.

Continuing the success of Alliance4Life, the EU-funded A4L_ACTIONS project aims to tackle the health R&I gap by improving the culture, governance, recognition and innovation potential of the health research-performing institutions in the lower-performing Central and Eastern European countries. This will help increase their attractiveness and pave the way for collaborations with advanced European countries.

Acronym
A4L_ACTIONS
Web page
http://alliance4life.ceitec.cz/
Grant Agreement ID
964997
Programme
H2020-EU.3.1.6. – Health care provision and integrated care
Call reference
H2020-SC1-2020-Single-Stage-RTD
Implementation period
01.05.2021. – 30.04.2024.
Project coordinator
The Central European Institute of Technology (CEITEC) at Masaryk University, Czech Republic
Project partners
The International Clinical Research Center of St. Anne’s University Hospital in Brno, Czech Republic
Biomedical Research Center Slovak Academy of Sciences, Slovakia
The Medical University of Lodz, Poland
University of Zagreb School of Medicine, Croatia
University of Tartu, Estonia
Vilnius University, Lithuania
Latvian Institute of Organic Synthesis, Latvia
University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Semmelweis University, Hungary
Medical University Sofia, Bulgaria
Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Romania
Leader of LIOS team
Dr. Osvalds Pugovičs
Total Budget
€ 1 999 932,50
LIOS Budget (EU contribution)
€ 155 912,50

Objective

The gap in Research and Innovation (R&I) performance, which persists despite considerable investments from the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) in the lower-performing regions of the EU, is an issue with major socio-economic and political consequences. In Health R&I the gap has a profound impact on distribution of funding from the EU Framework Programmes as well as on hindering the EU-wide impact of R&I on health and quality of life.

With A4L_ACTIONS, we aim to address roots of this situation in the lower-performing Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) by improving culture, governance, recognition and innovation potential of the health research-performing institutions. Our goal is to increase their attractiveness for collaborations with advanced Europe and create spill-over effects in the whole region. As the Alliance4Life, we are an established network of progressive health research institutions in CEE and a source of successfully piloted good practice. By building upon our results and impact achieved so far, we will convert our recommendations and strategies into actions as follows:

  • Culture fostering excellence: piloting peer-evaluation and assessment of institutional practice as a strategic management tool, professionalizing research administration;
  • Recognition and trust towards CEE: attracting advanced partners to identified pockets of excellence, supporting scientific ideas originating in CEE, initiating new international projects and collaborations with industry;
  • Career policy nurturing talent: training and networking next generation of leaders, upgrading institutional career systems;
  • Impact on innovation: raising the competences of Technology Transfer specialists, creating industry relations platform linking academia and industry;
  • Spill-over effects: sharing, inspiring, communicating with stakeholders and policy makers; using the established networks to gain advice, new collaborations and EU-wide impact.