Innovation of higher education and internationalization under debate in Manchester

Manchester, 28th October 2015.- Organized by the Coimbra Group of Brazilian Universities (GCUB), held from 27 to 29 October in Manchester the VII International Seminar where this group is discussing “Higher Education, Innovation and Internationalization”.
Speakers and prestigious institutions and universities worldwide, are giving appointment at this conference to discuss the present and future of higher education. Among them, Climate-KIC has been one of the participating organizations at this conference, where Rahul Bansal, Vice-Director of Education and Jose-Luis Muñoz, as Pioneers into Practice Programme Lead, explained the structure of this KIC, Knowledge Innovation Community, as well the performance and achievements of the different programmes.

Bansal, besides explaining the origin of Climate-KIC, the audience raised a number of questions on how to tackle higher education, commenting to mobilize 4 megatrends. He also reviewed the “training” received some key personalities in the world like Bill Gates or Walt Disney.

“A proper ecosystem based on the knowledge triangle (research, education and business) is needed”, Bansal stated for improving the current training. He explained that also is necessary “take them together with the catalyst work of governments and public administrations, to provide a proper framework for holistic thinking, development and promotion of innovation”, where Climate-KIC can play a key role, complementing the current training system with its graduate programmes and business school.

Bansal, after making a detailed review of the achievements of all programmes at the education pillar he leads, José-Luis Muñoz, took the turn to speak, who explained out in detail the programme of professional mobility, Pioneers into Practice (PIP), which it is coordinated at European level from the Spanish office of Climate-KIC located in Valencia.
In his speech, Muñoz, PIP Lead and also, Director of the Spanish Office of Climate-KIC in Valencia, stressed the importance of “acquire different skills throughout professional development to get a wider vision about what the market demands, and in this sense, the PIP Programme meets more than the participants´expectations”.

The key of this mobility programme is “to get these professionals out of their comfort zone” in order to see, experience and work in different environments other than their own, is the “learn by doing”, Muñoz said. This new approach for training provides the appropriate framework to develop new products, business models and create synergies with other organizations, “the challenge of climate change requires a new type of innovation, a new type of professionals” explained Muñoz.

To demonstrate the success of the PIP Programme, Muñoz gave a series of very illustrative figures and results taken out from the latest editions. A total of 930 different profiles professionals have gone through the PIP Programme from 13 European countries since 2010, it makes more than 1.600 placements in over 350 host organizations.

From the indicators gathered out from in the editions of 2013 and 2014, the programme helped to achieve improvements in 92 organizations, services and products, 101 knowledge transfer agreements and 119 new cases / business models in which they are working. All this has opened up a framework for job creation and for more opportunities where PiP has contributed to make an impact on climate change mitigation and prevention as were said in the 85% of participants, also known as pioneers, and 83% of the host organizations. In fact 68% of the pioneers continue to work on the challenges for its participation in the PIP programme.