Increasing synergies within and between higher education, research and innovation is of particular relevance for higher education institutions, which deal with all three policy areas on a daily basis. On national, as well as European level, new “food for thought” is required on how to jointly approach and integrate these policy areas in the existing and forthcoming international funding programmes.

This virtual event provided a platform for discussing concrete ways for raising not only complementarity, but also deepening interrelatedness between the policies and programmes on higher education, research and innovation at institutional, national and European level. The programme highlighted national level examples where deeper integration is put into practice, as well as examples of higher education institutions and specific initiatives successfully and innovatively integrating the three dimensions of the knowledge triangle, in an international cooperation context.

For the DAAD, the head of unit “Research and Studies”, Christian Schäfer, presented the DAAD’s RISE programme and debated the question of how to bring research to students and students to research?

Building on the discussions at the online event and a close consultation process with its members, ACA published a reflection paper advocating for the role of international higher education cooperation in strengthening synergies between education, research and innovation. To the publication