181

SynHERA, the efficiency of the Universities of Applied Sciences (UAS) network

SynHERA coordinates a true network of researchers in technological and social innovation from 19 Universities of Applied Sciences (UAS) and 10 Research Centres of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation. On a daily basis, almost 800 researchers work for economic and social stakeholders, thereby ensuring applied research has a genuine impact on regional economic development.

To develop innovation, be in tune with the world of tomorrow or boost creativity: a lot of businesses dream about this, but few have the necessary resources. And now, thanks to SynHERA, these various structures have an opportunity to access applied research and benefit from genuine scientific expertise.

Indeed, one of SynHERA's goals is to amplify synergies between the UAS and businesses. For all these businesses, both from an economic and a social perspective, this is a real gateway to stimulating innovation! Thanks to SynHERA, they have the opportunity to collaborate with the UAS and their Research Centres (RCs), institutions known and recognised for their high connectivity with the field. Moreover, this added value of research in the UAS just keeps on convincing businesses. In 2018, 131 of them had already benefited from the skills and expertise of the UAS and associated Research Centres of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, and others are now in turn being won over. These firms are located in all four corners of the world: Brazil, Canada, Germany, France and Switzerland. They have already expressed their interest in the applied research of these institutions.

The world is developing and research is spreading and growing

Unfortunately, despite the quality and unquestionable state of progress of this applied research in the UAS, sources of funding

are becoming rare. And yet we live in a rapidly changing and developing society. New factors emerge on a daily basis, whether environmental or technological. Faced with these new factors, businesses cannot allow themselves to “lag behind”and it is indispensable to perpetuate economic development and the wealth of knowledge, both in Wallonia and in Brussels.

There are also a few major issues on a human level, since applied research has been extended to the Humanities and Social Sciences. The support provided by SynHERA has de veloped accordingly: initially focused on technical and agronomic activities in the 11 UAS of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, today it provides support to 19 UAS and 10 Research Centres for all departments combined.

The opening up of the Humanities and Social Sciences categories has profoundly enhanced the field of action of research in the UAS which are showing an interest in these new issues, as well as in issues linked to teaching, immigration, territorial inequalities and the challenging of the democratic system. These are all subjects that make applied research indispensable in these fields.

Carrying out research is all well and good, but communicating on the research is better!

In the field of research more than in any other, it is important to be connected. Connected with global scientific literature, with the progress of knowledge levels and with other research centres. In this sense, SynHERA affords special attention to facilite access to scientific information for its members. This is how it came to be commissioned to produce and implement LUCK. LUCK is a unique archiving platform because it allows all UAS researchers to post in Open Access all publications linked to their research activities.

Introduced to comply with the spirit and the letter of a decree of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, the aim of this new platform is to improve research visibility. In this way, everyone - no matter what country they are from - will have access to this portal. In addition, for researchers, LUCK is an opportunity to share their scientific knowledge, promote their know-how and also be able to produce their online bibliography at "luck.synhera.be".

In addition to this visibility, SynHERA also offers its community of researchers the possibility of attending several events such as the Researcher Day and training courses that are fully tailored to their needs. One of these is “ProPulse”. It is an “à la carte” training course that promotes researcher awareness of the various key stages of their research project, such as methodology, writing, communication and also the valorisation of their work.

These events, training courses and, of course, synergies with businesses prove more than ever that applied research in the UAS has great days ahead of it and is helping to build the world of tomorrow!

Want to know more about SynHERA? Visit www.synhera.be or check out our social media pages.