Ideas in motion: Unite! Widening Staff Training Week at PoliTO

Turin has become a meeting point for Unite! Widening community, as colleagues from across the Alliance gathered at Politecnico for a staff training week addressed to Research Manager and Administrators built around curiosity, exchange, and shared views. 

Session highlights were many: pre-award and post-award research support; project management from the central and department perspective; contribution to policy and decision-making processes in R&I and advocacy; Technology Transfer and innovation best practices; principles of research data management and Open Science; networking with European administrative peers, and more. 

Participants, mainly coming from Wrocław Tech and Ulisboa, were able to explore tools and best practices for R&I project support services, visit the city of Turin, discover the PoliTO campus and laboratories, and engage in social and networking activities with colleagues from across the Alliance. Thanks to interactive sessions, visits, and spontaneous conversations in between, colleagues exchanged their respective work experiences and visions: a unique occasion to strengthen international networks and foster collaborations.

"I am extremely pleased with the success of the first Research Support Staff Week, which is the first of four such events planned under the Unite!Widening project. This Staff Week serves as a vital continuation of the activities of the Unite! Integrated Research & Innovation Services (IRIS) network, originally established in 2022 under the UNITE.H2020 project as a dedicated group of personnel working in the research support offices of the Unite! partner universities aiming at supporting the Unite! community and promoting stronger collaboration in research and innovation. I trust that this Staff Week will significantly contribute to the enhancement of the research management capacity in the Widening countries and across the whole Alliance, ultimately leading to a beneficial effect on R&I collaboration among all Unite! partners", stated Professor Roberto Zanino, principal investigator of Unite! Widening and Key Liason Officer of Unite! for PoliTO.

The five-day programme was organized as part of Unite!WIDENING, a project born within Unite! Alliance and funded by the Horizon Europe programme. Its goal is to strengthen the capacity of institutions from Widening countries (such as Poland and Portugal) as centres of excellence in open science and innovation through knowledge sharing, training, and collaboration.