The Rovira i Virgili University (URV) was founded in 1992. It is a public university serving southern Catalonia, a region with 800,000 inhabitants. The university was founded by the Catalan Parliament to unite existing higher education faculties and schools in the Tarragona area under a joint institutional umbrella. In 2015, URV had an annual budget of EUR 98.5 million and employed 1,154 staff, of which 488 were permanent academic staff. It had 11,500 students across six campuses, and 2,025 graduates per year from 52 study programmes. In postgraduate and doctoral degree programmes 27% of the students were international.  URV is deeply embedded into the regional economy. It is a comprehensive, research-intensive and globally linked university, contributing to innovation and sustainable growth in Catalonia’s core industries (chemical, energy, tourism and agro-food). Annually, URV spends around 27% of its overall budget (EUR 98.5 million in 2015) on research in development and innovation (RDI) activities. Two-thirds of this RDI budget comes from Spanish and Catalan competitive funding programmes. 

Innovative Features

• HEI - Business/External Relationships for Knowledge Exchange

The HEI is committed to knowledge exchange with industry, society and the public sector

There is wide and active local interest in establishing close links with URV. URV has six campuses spread throughout southern Catalonia. In response to the requests of the other municipalities in the region, URV started the Extended Campus initiative with a network of ‘knowledge antennas’. 

The first Knowledge Antenna (KA) was established in 2007 in Salou. In 2013, the knowledge antenna network- the URV Extended Campus- had grown to 13 KAs and had organised 230 activities involving more than 8,000 people. 

The URV Extended Campus strategically engages the University with the whole of the region. It serves to stimulate dialogue between a wide range of audiences with different knowledge and cultural interests. 

The HEI demonstrates active involvement in partnerships and relationships with a wide range of stakeholders

The KAs have been established in partnership with municipalities and other local stakeholders. These partners offer buildings to host teaching, research and third mission activities. Each KA has a coordinator, appointed jointly by the local host and the URV, whose task is to guide the participatory design process of the annual programmes in liaison with the URV’s vice-rector for external relations, and to oversee their implementation. 

Several exchange meetings are organised per year to bring together the 13 KAs. The activities of the KAs are tailored to local contexts. The programmes offered can be very diverse in terms of their format and thematic focus. 

All KAs have become platforms of dialogue and exchange for academia, businesses, industry representatives and civil society. They serve as regular meeting points for members of the university community, students, alumni, researchers, teaching and staff. 

The agreement between the University and the city council specifies that the University will bear the costs of management and administration and the council will provide the support required to carry out activities by making facilities and equipment available. The URV Extended Campus is backed financially by the Tarragona Provincial Council in collaboration with the Ramon Muntaner Institute, an association of local Catalan research centres and institutes. A part-time senior manager, employed as a member of URV staff, manages the centralised coordination of the URV Extended Campus. 

The HEI links research, education and industry (wider community) activities together to affect the whole knowledge ecosystem

CEICS was initiated in 2009 through a Spanish government initiative to promote education-research-innovation triangles within the framework of the Campus of International Excellence Spanish Programme. In 2011, the Extended Campus became part of the Campus of International Excellence Southern Catalonia (CEICS). 

CEICS has been crucial for the development of joint education and training initiatives in entrepreneurship and innovation. A strategic alliance has emerged, coordinated by the URV, which engages the main players in the regional knowledge and innovation ecosystem. 

The five specialisation areas of URV- chemistry and energy; nutrition and health, tourism, oenology and culture and heritage- function as thematic umbrellas for the bundling of infrastructure initiatives. An example of this is the science and technology parks. Education, further training and research activities have also been triggered by these collaborations. Today, there are six research institutes, five technology centres/ science and technology parks, four hospitals, and five enterprise associations linked with URV in the CEICS initiative. 

As a partnership, the CEICS has undergone three main stages of evolution. The first was the formalisation of the project, led by the URV and stimulated by the Spanish government, with an emphasis on the URV’s role in the regional knowledge and innovation ecosystem landscape. In the second stage governance and operational structures were set up. Finally, the third stage in 2012, the CEICS specialisation areas started to develop their own agendas to align with the general transversal strategic CEICS agenda. 

The CEICS partners legally registered the Southern Catalonia Knowledge Hub Association as a core structure comprising a general assembly, a governing board, an advisory council and an executive management. The rector of the URV is the chairperson of the governing board. The rector of URV proposes the annual programme of work for approval by the board. Each of the CEICS five areas of specialisation is led by a coordinator and an implementation team, including representatives from all partners. These teams oversee the implementation of CEICS projects and submit project proposals on new interventions to the governing board. The CEICS’s communications, IT systems and financial issues are the responsibility of the URV. 

CEICS is mainly funded by the Spanish Campus of International Excellence Program (EUR 13.9 million since 2009). A significant proportion of this amount (75%) covers costs related to teaching and research infrastructure, with the Centre for Omic Sciences being the most significant and strategic research centre in CEICS. 

CEICS projects also receive funding from the URV budget and from other public and private sources. In 2011-2012, this funding amounted to EUR 0.5 million. The postdoctoral fellowships programme, the Innovating Together project, the Southern Catalonia Innovation Hub, and the Extended Campus are funded from this source. The diagram below shows how CEICS projects are organised. 

CEICS projects are grouped into three areas: incremental, renewal and transformative projects. In 2017, there were 17 live projects, some of them spreading over several years. 

CEICS carries out specifically customised initiatives to promote knowledge transfer and innovation: 

• Tarragona Region of Knowledge Office: a strategic alliance between URV and the Provincial Council of Tarragona, to facilitate the access of companies, especially SMEs, to public RDI funds in a European, Spanish and Catalan sphere.
• The Southern Catalonia Innovation Hub, funded by CEICS and the Provincial Council of Tarragona, aims to educate, inspire, train and practice innovation with students, academics and professionals.
• The Innovating Together Communities has created three learning and development communities focused on food, collective intelligence and innovation processes.
 
• Every year a CEICS Annual Forum is organised to develop the CEICS community. The first two Forums were devoted to postgraduate and doctoral education programmes, with ‘innovation processes in local enterprises’ as a strategic focus for CEICS activities. 

It is too early to determine whether the CEICS has fulfilled its mission to be the driving force for regional knowledge and innovation ecosystem through increased cooperation of public-private partnerships reinforcing existing initiatives and increasing local-global links. However, over the past three years, the CEICS has developed its own system of governance and operational organisation and accompanying information and communications system. 

In 2012, the CEICS received the maximum accreditation in the on-going evaluation process of the Campus of International Excellence Program, established by the Spanish Government. 

CEICS projects and the cooperative efforts catalysed by the CEICS amongst its members have had a significant impact on overall regional performance. CEICS has shaped the ground rules for strategic international alliances on doctoral studies, research and innovation in the five areas of specialisation. 

The added value of CEICS as a partnership has been clearly shown by the success in: 

• Facilitating strategic focus e.g. doctoral studies, innovation      
• Increasing public and public-private cooperation e.g. CEICS doctoral and post-doctoral public-private fellowships
• Promoting large-scale cooperative projects e.g. Centre for Omic Sciences run by URV in cooperation with the Technological Centre for Nutrition & Health
• Acting as a catalyst for novel initiatives in the region e.g. Southern Catalonia Innovation Hub
• Improving the international visibility of the knowledge and innovation ecosystem in southern Catalonia e.g. EU-Drivers project
• Advancing in the orchestration of the knowledge and innovation ecosystem e.g. CEICS governance in areas of specialisation

Results/Achievements

Partnerships between different institutions with different missions, priorities, pressures and cultures can only be successful with the investment of considerable amount of time and effort and a deep desire to collaborate. 

The KAs have provided a good starting point for the CEICS initiative. It was a challenge to establish the Extended Campus. It was difficult to find people who were sufficiently motivated and skilled to take over the responsibility of establishing the KA, i.e. involve all local stakeholders and cover the entire geographic area. These challenges have been mostly overcome by ‘merging’ the KAs into the wider CEICS initiative. 

CEICS is a high-profile partnership initiative which aims to make the best use of local assets in teaching, research and knowledge transfer and absorption. The fact that the URV is 1) the only university in the region and 2) that it has a solid track record of leading the development of knowledge and innovation ecosystems has facilitated the establishment of the KAs and the CEICS initiative. 

The formal levels of governance in CEICS are only of marginal importance, compared to the relevance of the joint projects and initiatives for the regional knowledge and innovation ecosystem. The relationships established during the implementation of these activities are central to operational success. They must be recognised, and managed, as key elements in the shift towards a truly cooperative community. 

URV’s leadership in the coordination of the five specialisation areas, and the establishment of effective working groups in these areas, is vital in allowing individual initiatives to evolve into common projects and agendas. 

External incentives, most of which involve extra funding, should not play a key role in the partnership in the long term. More important is the commitment of the institutional leaders to contribute to the added value of regional cooperation. Funding issues can sway attention away from the central issues and lead to opportunistic decision making.