Our stories

Research Collaboration

Research and Innovation have been fully integrated into the work of CIVIS Alliance with the creation of two new bodies : a Research Council (composed of the Alliance's Vice-Presidents for Research), a strategic and advisory body, and a Research Unit (made up of representatives from the Research Departments and European Units of the member universities), which is more operational.

A Research & Innovation roadmap was defined in September 2024 for the entire Alliance and identifies five strategic areas of collaboration:

  1. Sharing and facilitating access to research infrastructures
  2. Support for early-career researchers
  3. Exchange of good practices in research support and management
  4. Participatory research`
  5. Networking and scientific collaborations within CIVIS 

Opportunities to collaborate

Through the establishment of a structured framework that fosters new synergies within the Alliance, the strengthening of research exchanges is illustrated in concrete terms by :

  • Increased and enhanced collaboration with Alliance partners,
  • Exchanges of expertise and best practices in areas identified as priorities by the Alliance,
  • The pooling of research resources and infrastructure,
  • Facilitated mobility for researchers within partner institutions,
  • Greater visibility for research at European level,
  • Facilitated access to European funding.

Testimonials

The idea was to create a CIVIS-based network between laboratories interested in using spatial omics technologies. It was the seed funding from CIVIS-UNIL that brought us together, which ultimately led to this successful grant application

Dirk Schmidt-Arras, Assoc. Prof. at the University of Salzburg

I met many colleagues from various European countries, with whom I exchanged experiences and received advice, and also had the chance to discuss problems I had during my experiments and explored possible solutions together. I was impressed by the remarkable openness of foreign experts to offer help!

Gabriela Daniluc, Reseacher at the University of Bucharest

Concrete actions

  1. The launch of an annual seed funding call to help develop scientific collaborations, particularly between European and African partners.
  2. The signing of a memorandum of understanding to facilitate access to research infrastructure within CIVIS.
  3. The development of online platforms listing all thematic research groups and research infrastructures accessible within the Alliance.
  4. The implementation of a programme promoting the attraction, mobility and training of postdoctoral researchers at the CIVIS level (CIVIS3i).
  5. The implementation of a programme to support and accompany citizen science initiatives at Alliance level (ScienceUs).
  6. Contributing to international work on research assessment reform carried out within the CoARA coalition.
  7. Identifying and jointly submitting collaborative European projects.
  8. Organising thematic staff weeks (participatory research, collaborative European projects, etc.) open to all partners.

Contact

Head of the Research Unit