Goodbye 2019, Welcome 2020!

Dear UIIN members, partners, colleagues, and friends,

While the new year is luring, the glasses are gleaming with playful sparks of champagne, the UIIN team would like to take a minute and reflect back on what happened in 2019 and have a look what awaits us in 2020.

In 2019 we have grown both as a team as well as a community. We have welcomed new institutional members from Australia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Lithuania, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the United States. With more than 30 countries, over 250 individual and 70 institutional members the global commitment to university-industry engagement has also grown in 2019.

It was also in 2019 that we have launched a number of new knowledge productions. Have a look at the latest two editions of the Future Universities Thoughtbook, Australian and North American, our Good Practice Case Study Book, and the Next Practice Book, with 10 new case studies and 31 new concepts and the more than 50 articles on the UIIN Blog. Also, make sure to have a look at the two UIIN Magazine issues around Emerging Technologies and Australia’s Innovation Pathway.

Our signature event, the University Industry Interaction Conference, that took place in Helsinki, Finland, was the biggest conference hosted by us since its inception. It welcomed more than 450 attendees and 100 speakers. We are looking forward to continuing the tradition and seeing you at our next conference in Budapest, Hungary from June 9^th to 11^th, 2020.

Our Australian partners, University of Technology Sydney and KPMG Melbourne, greatly assisted in organizing two wonderful events, the Asia-Pacific University-Industry Engagement Conference and our Australia Chapter Forum. We are also very much looking forward to the workshops and forums that we will be hosting in Australia in May and October of 2020.

In terms of projects we, together with our partners, started a new Restart+Communities project, worked on creating entrepreneurship teacher education programs, developed University-City Alliances, and undertook a number of studies for universities, industry and regional and European government towards key institutional collaboration strengths, better research and education alignment, and regional innovation capacity. In January 2020 we will kick-off a large-scale initiative for the European Commission around the development of a training program for university-industry engagement professionals to will be launched in 2021.

With 2019 soon passing into history, the UIIN team would like to thank all new partners for the trust you have in what we do and what we strive to achieve. Our gratitude also goes to our old friends who stay loyal and supportive in our endeavors. We look forward to 2020 to continue working with you and collaboratively advancing the space of university engagement.

So raise your glass to the end of the year and the beginning of … well … all of the great things happening to you in 2020. Our warmest wishes for a wonderful 2020!

Picture credit:
Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash