Strategic Management of Higher Education Institutions in a European Context

This chapter explores the strategic management of European universities and aims to provide an overall picture of the focus of contemporary strategic research. Twenty-five articles are examined using the public sector strategic research framework. The review provides a fragmented and multidimensional picture of the strategic management and leadership of universities. It can be viewed from several different perspectives, and therefore, the emphases are also different. Additionally, this is a challenge for strategic leadership when considering strategic choices in the higher education sector. This literature review suggests that the changing environment of the higher education sector highlights the need for new processes and frameworks for universities. Despite comprehensive strategy work, higher education institutions have been unable to meet the challenges related to change. A more comprehensive understanding of strategic management theories, frameworks, and tools would give universities a stronger understanding of strategic leadership and its implications for future success.

Strategic Research Agenda for Utilisation of Earth Observation in Agriculture

The EO4Agri Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) is a set of recommendations for future research activities in the area of Earth observation for agriculture. The EO4AGRI project provides support to all agri-food sectors based on new uses of COPERNICUS data. At first, part of the deliverable collected user needs from previous work are summarised including gaps in data, delivery platforms and knowledge management. Another input was an analysis of the current political framework and its influence on future agriculture. The implementation of the European Green Deal and the UN Sustainable Development Goals will require future collaboration of the public and private sectors. The main part of the SRA is a list of recommendations for future activities in the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), Horizon Europe (Annex 4 and Annex 6) and the Digital Europe programmes. It is not a revision of these programmes, but additional recommendations or tasks which are important to consider in updating the future programmes.

Motivation for people living with dementia to engage in research advisory boards

The importance of Public Involvement (PI) is increasingly being recognized in the field of dementia research. In 2012, Alzheimer Europe set up the European Working Group of People with Dementia (EWGPWD) which provides advice and input for all activities of the organization including several large European-funded research projects. The German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) created a research advisory patient board in 2020 with the intention of supporting the board in strategic research decisions. Both groups are composed of people with dementia and act independently. With the aim of finding out whether PI in research is mutually rewarding and beneficial, members of both groups were asked about their motivation to be involved in PI research activities and the value this had for them. This was collected either through narrative interviews or during meetings. People with dementia described several reasons for being involved in PI activities in dementia research.

The European Joint Programme on Radioactive Waste Management EURAD: update of its strategic research agenda

The European Joint Programme on Radioactive Waste Management EURAD brings together various research actors, namely waste management organisations (WMO), technical support organisations (TSO) and research entities (RE), to work on a joint strategic research agenda (SRA) focusing on deep geological disposal of radioactive waste. In total, 116 project partners from 23 countries have worked jointly since 2019 in collaborative RD&D work packages, strategic studies and various knowledge management activities. EURAD research is driven by the need for implementation of a deep geological repository and its safety, while aiming for scientific excellence. EURAD has developed a roadmap which is seen as a representation of a generic radioactive waste management (RWM) programme. The content is focused on what knowledge and competencies (including infrastructures) are considered most critical for RWM and implementation of deep geological disposal, in alignment with the EURAD vision. Here, the current SRA update process will be outlined from the perspective of Europe's research entities contributing to EURAD. In this context, the international network of research entities EURADSCIENCE plays a key role. EURADSCIENCE addresses – and will address during decades to come – scientific excellence in (the full lifecycle of) radioactive waste management from cradle to grave. As an independent, cross-disciplinary and inclusive organization, its overarching aim is to ensure scientific excellence and credibility in decision-making on RWM, regardless of national implementation status, waste type or national inventory. To this end, EURADSCIENCE will define and update its own SRA. The approach here is to maintain a holistic view of scientific disciplines and provide scientific excellence to advance progress of national radioactive waste management programmes, and to ensure scientific credibility of waste management concepts as well as addressing fundamental requirements related to knowledge management. More generally speaking, EURADSCIENCE aims to bring forward a vision that assures that scientific excellence and ever-developing scientific advances are integrated at any given time into the multigenerational implementation process of geological disposal. Similarly, the respective WMO and TSO networks, IGD-TP and SITEX, have developed their SRAs based on their specific roles and perspectives. Ultimately, the overlap between these SRAs will define the envelope for future European RD&D activities in the context of RWM. The update process has recently been consolidated after consultations between the three actor groups. Ultimately, the EURAD general assembly will have to approve the SRA update process regarding its alignment with the EURAD roadmap, the development of the seven existing SRA themes, the development of future RD&D activities via an EURAD exchange forum and the focus of RD&D planning for the next 10 years.

Global trends in aviation – new research directions

For more than two decades, the aviation world is revolving around one idea: reducing the impact on the environment. Although each action taken now, each strategy, each programme make reference to the decisions taken within the United Nation Conference on Climate Change, in Paris, in 2015, aviation community has recognized the environment and the climate change as a major challenge for aeronautics and air transport since the publication of Vision 2020 (European Commission, [1]) in January 2001. This document set the agenda for the European aeronautics ambition to better serve society’s need and all the Strategic Research Agendas that followed – SRA1 (published in October 2002), SRA 2 (published in October 2004), 2008 Addendum to the SRA and the more recently Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 they all are addressing the “Challenge of environment” in SRA 1 and SRA 2 or in SRIA 1 and 2 identifying one of the big five challenges to 2050 – “Protecting the environment and the energy supply”. The concern for protecting the environment is not new, the only.

Polish network of research infrastructure for plant phenotyping

This document is an edited version of the original application for inclusion of a strategic research infrastructure project in the Polish Roadmap for Research Infrastructures. The application entitled "Polish network of research infrastructure for plant phenotyping" was submitted to the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education in June 2018; the project was not included in the Roadmap published in January 2020. The original document did not contain this abstract.

HOW INDUSTRY 4.0 RESHAPES THE WORLD: RECOMMENDATIONS BASED ON COMPLEX GRAPH NETWORK ANALYSIS

Industry 4.0 is a great opportunity and a tremendous challenge for every role of society. Our study combines complex network and qualitative methods to analyze the Industry 4.0 macroeconomic issues and global supply chain, which enriches the qualitative analysis and machine learning in macroscopic and strategic research. Unsupervised complex graph network models are used to explore how industry 4.0 reshapes the world. Based on the in-degree and out-degree of the weighted and unweighted edges of each node, combined with the grouping results based on unsupervised learning, our study shows that the cooperation groups of Industry 4.0 are different from the previous traditional alliances. Macroeconomics issues also are studied. Finally, strong cohesive groups and recommendations for businessmen and policymakers are proposed.