18 April 2024
dsnews.ua published a blog by Olga Voropai (candidate of economic sciences, coordinator of the NP Academ.City project) on the topic
The scientific world is trying to support Ukraine in a time of severe challenges, in particular, with grants, both for scientific institutions and individual proposals. Mentoring programs are also in place.
All Western science is developing on the same principles. For example, in 2022, German universities and research institutions attracted and effectively used more than €18 million in grants for entrepreneurial education and other activities, while Ukrainian universities and research institutions received barely a million. So, we have room to grow.
After the large-scale invasion, EU grants have become a priority for many Ukrainian universities to fill financial gaps and stimulate research communities.
For example, the European Institute of Technology, after a successful pilot, decided to extend its university grant program (EIT HEI)* until 2027. The EIT HEI community is serious about supporting Ukraine, and at the end of last year it opened an office in our country. Since 2022, 22 grant projects have been implemented under the EIT HEI grant program, which aims to stimulate the development of entrepreneurship in universities, provide them with resources to support innovative ideas of young scientists, hold student startup competitions, and increase the capacity of universities. In total, in 2023, the EIT community launched more than 50 educational, entrepreneurial, and business activities for Ukraine.
Ukraine regularly operates financial support programs for startups (for example, programs of the Ukrainian Startup Fund), incubators, and pan-European EIC Accelerator grant programs. And this is an absolutely "adult" level. And university programs are much simpler and friendlier, because they allow you not to be afraid of mistakes, to learn in the process (learning by doing).
Despite the fact that university activities to support startups and innovations are mostly pre-incubation level, similar to banal courses on entrepreneurship and business, the key advantage in such projects is that the teachers are really experienced mentors, many of them with their own business experience or their own startup.
In 2022, the State Research Institution Kyiv Academic University (KAU) was among the top three Ukrainian organizations in terms of the amount of grants attracted from EIT HEI.
KAU, as an ambitious higher education institution of a new model, has been developing research education for eight years and aims to create a community for students that would organically combine education, science and innovation in the direction of Ukraine's integration into the European Research Area. The academic university was modeled on a system that has already proven itself in a number of international educational centers, including the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and others.
Venture Creation Course Lean Launchpad
This course consists of two modules: studying theory and practical work on the project. The theoretical part is available online for self-study, and during the practice, mentors from KAU, Varna Technical University, Arctic University of Tromso, G-Force, FastTrack venture funds, and Edinburg Innovations Center join in. They help to develop a business model and go through the first steps of developing an innovative business project. The goal is to successfully pitch the team at a European competition in Portugal. An additional bonus is that the credits received can be credited to their university curricula.
4innopipecourse
This is a joint entrepreneurial program of the University of Reutlingen (Germany), Zagreb School of Economics and Management (Croatia), KAU (Ukraine), and the University of Helsinki (Finland) with the support of EIT Food. The course consists of three blocks: core courses, master classes, and coaching sessions. In the core courses, students formulate problems and study them in detail through user research. They study a social or environmental challenge to determine the source of the problem. Next, they map the customer journey and create a vision for a product or service based on the data collected. The course ends with the preparation of a pitch presentation for investors, which will be taught to be clear and convincing.
Mentoring program to support innovative projects
A program for KAU students in which students have the opportunity to create both the product itself and its business model. They work in parallel with scientific advisors in technical specialties (materials scientists, microbiologists, data scientists) and business mentors from Academ.City. This is the approach that allows you to immediately understand the market potential of scientific research.
BOOSTER of innovative projects
This is where it all started and what we have been successfully implementing for the fifth time this year. Together with colleagues from the Institute for Economics and Forecasting and a whole cohort of invited experts in the field of intellectual property, marketing, and industrial design. This time, the target audience was not so much students as researchers from the institutes of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine who are seeking to commercialize their own developments. The result is a pitch presentation that can be used to apply for grant competitions, present a project to a potential investor, and find partners. As part of BOOSTERy, we prepare teams to participate in Seeds of Bravery competitions, a €20 million project funded by the European Union under the European Innovation Council (EIC) to support Ukrainian technology startups.
At KAU, we are implementing the four programs mentioned above. At one point, we were afraid that we were threatened with "cannibalism" because all four programs need to be held in the spring of 2024, and we have only 50 students. However, we succeeded. All projects have successfully attracted their participants, and now the teams are actively working to present the results of their work in May this year.
It is difficult not only with competition but also with demand. Students' time is very limited, and the workload is insane. So, no matter how interesting and promising their business idea is, the priority will be to pass exams. Therefore, it is important to integrate these activities into the educational process as much as possible without creating additional problems for students.
Another important point is the result obtained after such an educational program or competition. Unfortunately, even if universities have grant funds, it is very difficult for them to spend them on cash prizes for participating teams. There is no transparent, clearly regulated regranting procedure for universities. Therefore, every time they have to look for sponsors to provide financial incentives for the participants, because a cup with a logo is not going to surprise anyone.
Grant programs with other sources of funding, mainly from the EU, stimulate support for startups and entrepreneurship in our universities and research institutes. As a result, dozens of educational courses on how to do business and set up a startup have become available to students. In the fall of 2023, at the end of the reporting period for grants, social media was flooded with announcements of hackathons, marathons, startup competitions, and dozens of other activities where you could present your idea. Universities started competing for students, making efforts to advertise their activities, and trying to stand out from the competition. It sounds very promising. And according to the classics of market economics, it should help to create a high-quality offer of activities that will best meet the needs of the student startup community.
And another emphasis: for absolutely every university and research institution, such support from grant programs is a real boost through the power of international networking, expansion and strengthening of the ecosystem, which is very important during wartime and for the post-war recovery period. Yes, the war is the most difficult challenge, but it has paradoxically opened many windows of opportunity that we must take advantage of.
