SMART Innovation Centres for the Development of Innovative and Entrepreneurial Thinking to Facilitate the Development of Sustainable Smart Solutions in the Western Balkans

The SMART project addresses the problem of low innovation capacity in smart specialisation in the Western Balkan countries, specifically in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. The project is designed to systematically support the partner universities to go beyond their role as knowledge providers and instead become active shapers of a regional innovation ecosystem where different stakeholders meet following the Quintuple Helix Innovation Model: universities as knowledge providers, businesses, government and public organisations, civil society, and environmental organisations.

The primary objective of the project is to address the existing gap between higher education outcomes and labour market requirements by:

• Addressing the challenges of higher education institutions in the area of smart specialisation and the related development of competencies for innovation and entrepreneurship by introducing new learning modules in different areas of smart specialisation and innovative teaching approaches, including online teaching, cross-curricular learning and virtual mobility.
• Supporting the professional development of academic staff in higher education institutions in the development of competencies for innovation and entrepreneurship for the needs of smart specialisation, including hybrid and online teaching practices.
• Facilitating the establishment of seven Innovation Centres at higher education institutions in the target countries and their integration into the existing structure of higher education institutions.
• Facilitating sustainable cooperation between higher education institutions and the business sector through a new knowledge exchange network.
• Promoting work placements and (virtual) mobility of students and staff.