Dr. Jevgenija Dehtjare, Head of the Development of the Scientific Institution at EKA attended the HEInnovate Train the Trainers workshop in Brussels in 2023, where she learned about the HEInnovate self-assessment and action cards. She left the workshop feeling enthusiastic about the methodology of the HEInnovate self-assessment to assess institutions and about the action cards, particularly the ideas suggested at the training to employ gamification methods in combination with the action cards to assess innovative progress. She found the Train the Trainers workshop to be very informative and useful and particularly appreciated the knowledge of the HEInnovate Experts Group, who gave helpful suggestions for action plans and ways to implement HEInnovate at attendees’ higher education institutions. Dr. Dehtjare also found the workshop to be beneficial due to the opportunities it presented for networking: she made several connections with other participants, remained in contact with them, and has gone on to collaborate on several scientific publications with them on the topics of organisational management change in HEIs and how the introduction of education for sustainable development principles into HEIs may increase their resilience.[1]

After participating in the Train the Trainers workshop, Dr. Dehtjare began taking steps to implement HEInnovate at EKA. She presented HEInnovate at a workshop in March 2024.[2] The workshop was held within the framework of the international, project UnWaste, which is financed and supported by the ERASMUS+ programme of the European Union Capacity building in the field of higher education and is focused on developing engineering-based, master-level waste management curriculum to support a circular economy. EKA is one of the partner institutions for this project. For her presentation, Dr. Dehtjare was inspired by and therefore followed the model she experienced at the Train the Trainers workshop: she described HEInnovate to an audience of around nine members of the administration, and master’s students from three partner universities in Kazakhstan (A. Baytursynov Kostanay State University, Sh. Ualikhanov Kokshetau State University, Saken Seifullin Kazakh Agrotechnical University) and showed them where they could access HEInnovate resources online. She translated the self-assessment into Russian so that groups of stakeholders from each university could take part in an assessment of their own institution. The group discussed the various universities’ strengths, weaknesses, and potential areas of improvement, and formed action plans to take back to their universities, mirroring the format of the Train the Trainers workshop.

Dr. Dehtjare was also eager to feature HEInnovate as part of EKA’s International Academic Week3 in April 2024, which was held within the framework of an ERASMUS+ project. The event involved about 130 participants from education institutions around Europe coming to Riga to present and/or attend lectures, workshops, panel discussions, and social events, making connections with each other and sharing experiences. Dr. Dehtjare invited Mikkel Trym and Zsuzsa Jávorka, from the HEInnovate Experts Group to hold a workshop for about 50 people about HEInnovate at the International Academic Week. Mikkel and Zsuzsa showed workshop participants what HEInnovate could offer them, as well as talked them through the website resources and the self-assessment tool, which participants found to be very valuable.   Participants felt that they were able to compare their progress towards making their HEIs more innovative and entrepreneurial with that of other HEIs at the workshop, identify gaps in that progress, and define their priorities for taking the next steps to improve this at their HEIs.

Finally, Dr. Dehtjare has shared the results of her own HEInnovate self-assessment of EKA with her vice-rector, rector, and members of the Scientific Institute. Going forward, they plan to hold a focus group at EKA in October 2024, where staff stakeholders can take the self-assessment and have a group discussion of the university’s results and potential for growth. Dr. Dehtjare has another goal for her future work with HEInnovate: the tool has inspired her to aim to write a scientific publication about HEInnovate, using other university data and results for comparison. She plans to further her involvement with HEInnovate and continue to spread its impact across EKA and other universities.

Prepared by Charlotte Armstrong, Technopolis Group

[1] Dehtjare, J., Uzule, K., Turuševa, L., Mironova, J., & Hanushchak-Yefimenko, L. (2024). ORGANIZATIONAL MANAGEMENT CHANGE IN HEIs: PERCEPTIONS OF ACADEMIC STAFF. Management Theory and Studies for Rural Business and Infrastructure Development, 46(1), 45–53. https://doi.org/10.15544/mts.2024.05 WOS:001197028900007

Dehtjare, J., Kinderis, R., Mironova, J., Užule, K., & Hanushchak-Yefimenko, L. (2024). Fostering the resilience of HEIs by the introduction principles of education for sustainable development: A pilot study. In New Trends in Contemporary Economics, Business and Management. Selected Proceedings of the 14th International Scientific Conference “Business and Management 2024”, pp. 493–501. https://doi.org/10.3846/bm.2024.1161

[2] “HEInnovate: is your HEI prepared for future challenges?” workshop for UnWaste project financed and supported by the ERASMUS+ programme of the European Union Capacity building in the field of higher education, in Astana, Kazakhstan on the 12th March, 2024 https://www.augstskola.lv/?parent=567&lng=eng