Webinar Summary - Capacity-building for Researchers: Fostering Knowledge-based Innovation in Higher Education

The Community for Educational Innovation (CEI) hosted a webinar on November 18, 2025: “Capacity-building for Researchers: Fostering Knowledge-based Innovation in Higher Education.” This webinar explored strategies for fostering researchers' skills, mindsets, and leadership to promote knowledge-based innovation and valorisation.

To learn more about the session, you can access the following resources:

📄 Session Summary
📤 Presentation Slides
📘 Background Note

Three Expert Perspectives

Christophe Haunold (Head of Partnerships, University of Luxembourg): Dr. Haunold examined how institutional arrangements and TTOs shape researchers’ ability to bring research findings to market and society. He emphasised that public research organisations never innovate alone, relying on companies, investors, non-profit organisations, and intermediaries to reach end users. He argued that capacity building must go beyond training individuals and instead be embedded within institutional missions, governance systems, recruitment policies, and evaluation criteria.
Key issues included misalignment between institutional objectives and valorisation expectations, insufficient follow-up on exploitation plans in publicly funded research, and the need for clear rules governing collaboration and intellectual property. Haunold highlighted that public funding may increasingly be tied to demonstrable impact, underscoring the importance of integrated institutional strategies for knowledge valorisation. 

Victoria Galán-Muros (CEO, Innovative Futures Institute): Dr. Galán-Muros offered a comprehensive view of what effective capacity building requires, presenting 15 insights drawn from international experience. She stressed that researchers’ skills, incentives, institutional environments, and wider ecosystems interact to shape impact outcomes.
Her insights covered the need for shared definitions, evidence-based programme design, early intervention (especially at the PhD stage), discipline-sensitive training models, and practical, real-case learning approaches. She highlighted persistent barriers across HEIs—lack of time, inadequate funding, insufficient facilitators, and fragmented activities—and underscored that capacity building must be continuous rather than a one-off intervention.
Crucially, she emphasised that training alone is not enough: researchers need networks, legal and IP support, negotiation assistance, and conducive institutional cultures. Long-term identity and culture change, she argued, is the true marker of successful capacity building. 

Juliëtte Boughouf (Co-founder, THRIVE Institute): Juliëtte Boughouf presented a practitioner’s perspective based on THRIVE Institute’s work supporting societal impact in the Netherlands. She described THRIVE’s model, which has trained over 400 academics and focuses on helping researchers move from intention to concrete impact through hands-on, real-project learning.
Researchers choose among four valorisation pathways—policy influence, impact-first business, popular science, and place-based development—and develop entrepreneurial, communication, stakeholder-analysis, and knowledge-broker skills. Boughouf illustrated impact achievements ranging from policy changes to community-level initiatives and international leadership roles.
She highlighted major challenges such as the underuse of academic knowledge, the “impact gap” created by weak incentives and limited skills, and the lack of preparedness among PhD graduates who move outside academia. Her message underscored the need for personalised support structures and diverse pathways that reflect researchers’ strengths, motivations, and career aspirations. 

Key Takeaways

• Incentives matter. Webinar polls showed that participants see entrepreneurship and innovation support services, dedicated funding, and career-progression recognition as the most critical enablers of knowledge valorisation. Flexibility in workload and incentives for external collaboration were also highly valued.
• Impact beyond publications. HEIs must recognise and reward the societal, economic, and environmental value of research and treat valorisation as a core component of academic work.
• Human-centric support and culture change. Institutions need to empower researchers by embedding training in academic routines, fostering psychological safety for experimentation, and repositioning TTOs as strategic partners rather than administrative gatekeepers.
• Ecosystems and partnerships matter. Successful innovation relies on collaboration among HEIs, industry, government, and civil society, supported by fair IP rules and shared value frameworks.
• Inclusiveness and diversity drive impact. All researchers—across disciplines, genders, backgrounds, and career stages—should have access to training, role models, and opportunities to explore societal impact.
• Tailored and long-term support is essential. One-size-fits-all approaches do not work; institutions must offer multiple pathways to impact and recognise that capacity building takes years to bear fruit.

Stay connected with the Community for Educational Innovation for more events, resources, and opportunities to shape the future of entrepreneurial education.

Not yet a CEI member? Join the CEI community here