The final hybrid event USIA THE FUTURE, USIA THE PRESENT organized from Tirana Chamber of Commerce and Industry & Professional College of Tirana.

Projects

USIA – designed to address challenges of strengthening the collaboration between university and society in Albania.

Prof. Assoc Nevila Xhindi, USIA Project Manager detailed the USIA journey, through its Working Packages. A walk in the memory lane highlighting its key results and achievements in the past two years:

5 Established Knowledge Transfer and Innovation Brokerage Unit (USIA) at 5 universities in Albania as a mechanism that links in an institutionalized and sustainable way university to business, government, civil society and media.
Enhanced interaction, partnerships and collaborative projects between the stakeholders of the Quadruple Helix to co-produce knowledge by creating added value for the entire high education ecosystem in Albania. The cooperation between #academia and #society’ brought to new levels.
Mobility opportunities to young researchers to circulate between academia, business sector, public sector, civil society and media.
Capacity building;
Produced models for co-production of knowledge & research, guidelines and best practices.

Jola Osmenaj (KPT) and Aris Tasho (CCIT) detailed the works and achievements under WP 5, “Second a Researcher” scheme that strengthened the university to business cooperation, in terms of 5 innovative solutions each HEI provided to a business; there is a reason why we called it “What’s your superpower”!

Marjeta Dhima (KPT), one of the main contributors of WP5 in KPT, shared her valuable input on the relation between academia and the actors of Quadruple Helix, emphasizing the importance of the enhanced and effective collaboration with all of them, with specific examples like the collaboration during the public consultation of the draft law on fluorinated gases, while asking more media coverage for the work of academia.

Honored to have among the guest, Anna Maria Patella, Head of International Relations and Projects in Fondazione “A. Cuccovillo” – Bari – ITS Meccanica-Meccatronica-Energia that introduced HISTEK project emphasizing the importance of knowledge transfer as a requirement, especially in the context of Industry 4.0, the creation of integration between systems of the stakeholders, while there is more to be done in terms of capacity building and improvement to respond to the market.

Glad to see the synergies and the approach HISTEK and USIA shared that open path to new interactions.

Saimir Yzeiri and Ervis Qose (KPT) introduced the lab established with the support of USIA project, as a tool to capacity building, where our committed students contributed setting them up under their mentoring.

Many thanks to the organizers, the speakers and to all researchers, students, colleagues, partners, collaborators, stakeholders who joined in.

You know, USIA NEVER STOPS!