Abstract

University Alliances represent a European strategy for universities that supports the European Commission in implementing actions such as those defined in the European Research Area (ERA) Policy Agenda 2021 - 2024. Therefore, this agenda depends on co-operation between the different Higher Education Institutions which depends on the Research Manager and Administration (RMA), specialised human resources. These are groups of people capable of supporting practical issues related to the objectives of each Alliance and the institutions that compose it, but they are also capable of supporting the coordination/leadership teams in designing strategies and making decisions.
The RI4C2 Project (Research and Innovation for Cities and Citizens Project) is part of the strategy of the EC2U Alliance (European Campus of City Universities), which is made up of seven higher education institutions, including the University of Coimbra (UC). The UC recognises the relevance of this international strategy, which contributes to the common development of research and innovation agendas covering topics such as Open Science, Citizen Science and the promotion and development of researcher’s careers through the implementation of instruments such as the Human Resources Strategy for Researchers (HRS4R). UC leads the "People Empowerment" Group, which is dedicated precisely to this last topic. Therefore, this university recognise the need to create a differentiated profile for the coordination of the group, which led to the hiring of a science manager who manage UC's execution of the project, but also actively contributes to the execution of the other universities tasks. This role has been fundamental to the success of the dynamics and the quality of the planned deliverables. In fact, a science manager with a differentiated profile, who is proactive and mobilises agents and entities, makes it possible to achieve the concrete objectives of the project, but also to influence the policies that emerge from it inside and outside the UC.
This session will present some of the results and good practices achieved by the science manager and will discuss key ideas related to emerging challenges in this area, such as forms of cooperation, the definition of harmonised Research & Innovation strategies, the framework and strategic planning of career certification at Alliance and Institutional level, among others.