DIHNET Academy: Strengthening European Innovation Networks

Driven by need

Developing and executing a cross-border innovation project is a job of its own. From managing different cultures, articulating opportunities and crafting contracts to navigating regulations and technological challenges.

Often, partnerships are formed for a specific project, and then swiftly dissolve when the project is complete. But establishing trust and agreements is often time-consuming and costly. And project participants may have no previous experience in such a complex environment. The founding partners of DIHNET Academy aim to create a community of experts throughout Europe that know how to forge structural collaborations.

This skilled network of professionals will facilitate smoother connections and more effective knowledge sharing and collaboration, in order to boost European innovation in a structural way. By training participants in the most effective ways to establish and build these relationships, the Academy prepares more organisations to collaborate more effectively.

Focused on empowerment

The DIHNET Academy’s primary proposition is a mentoring programme that empowers European professionals to form and maintain collaborative innovation networks.

Through training, coaching and peer learning, they learn the optimal ways to orchestrate, manage and maintain key strategic partnerships and form lasting Strategic Public/Private Innovation Networks (SP2INs) in their region.

Then, participants can learn to develop ‘interregional innovation corridors’, a term coined by TNO. These corridors connect SP2INs throughout a country – and eventually throughout Europe – and aid in the exchange of industrial and research capabilities, which in turn stimulates innovation and accelerates its market uptake.

Maintaining these networks independently of specific project work means that – when specific skills are needed – collaboration can begin more swiftly and for lower costs than building a relationship from scratch at the start of a project.

Founded in expertise

Founding partners TNO, Civitta, FundingBox Accelerator and Digital Hub Management already had vast experience in orchestrating these complex, cross-border collaborations. In a series of previous projects, including multiple EU- and EC-funded projects aimed at boosting European collaboration, the Academy’s founders explored the most effective ways to build and boost SP2INs, as well as for better understanding of how these networks operate best.

Most recently, the BOWI project aimed to create structural collaboration through interregional innovation corridors. The results and insights uncovered during BOWI fuelled the structure and setup for DIHNET Academy.

Join for long-term success

DIHNET Academy is now a fully operational and self-sustaining organisation. Research, industry and governmental organisations involved in establishing innovation collaboration across Europe can engage with the Academy to learn the skills necessary to orchestrate and maintain robust networks of collaboration partners and accelerate innovation.