All the ideas that emerged from the workshop held as part of the NOP Research and Innovation event
ITA | ENG
How important is innovation in teaching and learning systems, and what role can universities, together with businesses, play in the development of innovative methods to support students? This was the topic of the workshop entitled “Supporting innovation in teaching and learning” that took place in the afternoon of 22 February as part of the NOP Research and Innovation 2014-2020 annual event organized this year in collaboration with the European Commission’s University Business Forum. The objective of this workshop was to present the experiences of higher education institutions and business representatives, experts and analysts from all over the EU. 
The workshop was moderated by Rui Coutinho, Executive Director of the Innovation Ecosystem, Nova School of Business and Economics, Lisbon, who highlighted the importance of the theme given the changes that society is already facing today, above all climate change, which must be addressed through the acquisition of new skills and new specializations.
Klaus Sailer, Professor in Entrepreneurship at Munich University of Applied Sciences and CEO of the Strascheg Centre for Entrepreneurship (SCE), explained that our universities are currently full of new talent, students who are much more passionate and resourceful than in the past, with a new set of values. The real challenge is to offer them a comprehensive view of life that puts specific skills in their reference contexts. In this respect, entrepreneurship, understood in the holistic sense, can be an important tool to be used in the university system.
Andrea Rosalinde Hofer, Policy Analyst and Project Leader, Labour Market Relevance and Outcomes Partnership Initiative, OECD, emphasized the importance of innovation and the new digital skills which should become more and more central to university curricula to better prepare young people for the ongoing changes in the world of work, also because the years of study are a unique moment in life when it is possible to reflect critically on what one wants to do. Nowadays, those entering the world of work are required to adapt quickly to an ever-changing environment by developing new knowledge and skills so as not to be left behind. The speed and unpredictability of these changes make it impossible to identify exactly the skills that today’s students will need to succeed in their future careers. Institutions involved in higher education are called upon to respond to these developments through increasingly innovative approaches that take into account the needs of students and of the labour market. “What we are doing today is also extremely important, namely sharing these approaches that benefit students, institutions and policymakers alike”, Hofer said.
A first-hand experience of the new needs of the world of work was provided by Vanessa Tierney, CEO at Abodoo, a platform created in 2017 to address the need to connect people, skills and companies. Until a few years ago, traditional job platforms did not meet this need and so Abodoo created a dynamic visual dashboard that showcases multiple datasets, both public and private, providing instant reporting so key strategic recruitment, investment and education decisions could be made. The service was then integrated with Geonostics mapping so that as users create their skills profiles, these can be “discovered” in real time. This feature also enables Governments to see the potential of citizens having the opportunity to stay in the region and work for a company anywhere in the world.
Another example of new technologies applied to the fields of knowledge is “VASARI – Smart Valorization of the ARtistic Heritage of Italian Cities”, the project presented by Paola Dal Zovo, Santer Reply SpA, funded by the NOP Research and Innovation 2014-2020 under action “Clusters” on industrial research and experimental development projects in the 12 Smart Specialization areas. The project brings together the latest digital innovations, starting with augmented reality, to revolutionize the activities of valorization, fruition and management of works of art, aiming to build a new cultural space where the physical spaces of museums and historical sites are integrated into the digital space of cultural content and services and interconnected based on a multi-site model. The project developed a new open and cloud-based platform that on the one hand integrates cultural content, data on the visits and sensing data on the context and physical spaces of different sites and museums and, on the other hand, provides new services for visitors and cultural institutions.
Finally, Agostino Marengo, professor at the University of Foggia and founder of OSEL, a spinoff from the University that develops innovative solutions for corporate digital learning and hosts PhD students on scholarships for innovative industrial doctorates funded by the NOP Research and Innovation. “Human Resources managers still have a very traditional way of thinking and e-learning is not an easy market to develop,” said Marengo, and added: “We have had the opportunity to move some major companies, such as Valentino, Fendi and Vodafone, from the traditional environment to e-learning matching it with the university environment”. Marengo pointed out that many students have started working at OSEL and this has led to growth both for them and for the company. The idea for the future is to apply the new blockchain and NFT technologies to the academic environment.