Claudio Cruz Cazares, researcher at the UB Business School and StartUB! Director of the University of Barcelona will lead the international project “Transforming universities towards entrepreneurship” (TRUE), which aims to eliminate the obstacles in innovation and entrepreneurship and boost these activities. This project will receive funding from the Innovation Capacity Building for Higher Education (EIT’s HEI), an initiative from the European Union’s European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT).

During the first period, the impact of TRUE is expected to reach 4,000 people and this figure is expected to grow up to 19,000 by 2030. The project aims to strengthen links of the knowledge triangle and make innovation, tools and customized support in the field of entrepreneurship open and access-friendly. Apart from the UB, other participants are the University of Montpelier, the University of Extremadura, the Politechnic Institute of Lisbon, UCEIF Foundation from the University of Cantabria, the Donation & Transplantation Institute and the spin-off Sapiens Mindset.

The main objectives of TRUE (Transforming Universities Towards Entrepreneursip) are: to make entrepreneurship and innovation policies part of daily routines and stable in the long term; generate impact in higher education institutions; make education and training in innovation and entrepreneurship accessible to students and academic and non-academic staff; drive organizational change towards entrepreneurship through behavioural change; fill the gap between entrepreneurial actions, teaching and research.

EIT’s HEI aims to support higher education institutions through expertise and training, access to the EIT innovation ecosystem and funding, so that they can carry out innovation action plans. As part of its pilot phase, EIT has funded 23 projects, including TRUE.