From Theory to Action: HEInnovate Takes the Regional Innovation Challenge to Osijek

📍 24 April 2026 | RED 2026 Conference, Osijek, Croatia

What does it look like when higher education professionals from across Europe come together to tackle shared institutional challenges, and design concrete solutions in real time? At the RED 2026 Conference in Osijek, 24 participants found out first-hand. 

HEInnovate hosted a 90-minute workshop at the 15th International Scientific Conference "Region, Entrepreneurship, Development" (RED 2026), bringing together researchers, higher education professionals and regional stakeholders. Facilitated by Flávia Colus and Debora Cogliano (PPMI), the session introduced the HEInnovate framework to a multi-institutional audience with many encountering it for the very first time.

The workshop opened with a mini self-assessment, where participants rated their own institution across HEInnovate's eight dimensions. The results sparked immediate discussion: teaching and learning and ecosystem connections emerged as strengths, while impact measurement and digital transformation were rated lowest. 

The centrepiece was the Regional Innovation Challenge, a scenario-based group activity designed for open conference settings where participants come from different institutions. Each group received a fictional institutional profile, a full set of HEInnovate self-assessment results, and the Action Cards, then worked together to diagnose challenges and design concrete actions for change across three distinct scenarios: a mid-sized university battling brain drain, a polytechnic navigating the twin transition, and a research-intensive university with strong internationalisation but weak local engagement.

Groups engaged with the exercise as they would with real institutional data, leaving with a clearer understanding of how to apply the HEInnovate framework and resources, from self-assessment to Action Cards, in their own institutional contexts. 

The scenario-based format proved a natural fit for mixed, multi-institutional audiences, and its success points to a replicable model for bringing HEInnovate to new communities across Europe.

📸 Explore a selection of photos from the workshop.

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