Reflections on EU projects
Research in Technology-Enhanced Learning,
Creativity, and Roadmapping
Lampros Stergioulas
SISCM, Brunel University
Overview
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A historical walkthrough of projects in
TEL, Creativity, and Roadmapping
Outlook of EU research funding –
current perspective and future
prospects
Reflections on EU bids
Overview of research
projects
European TEL research:
Home truths and family secrets
Past research (in TEL, & often beyond):
 Delivery of TEL below its weight
 High expectations, but low impact
 Low return on investment, low exploitation
 Disillusionment, disappointment
 Failing so far to establish EU as a global
leader
 Good transnational research collaboration
 But pan-European, transnational, transcultural TEL still elusive
European TEL research:
Home truths and family secrets
What future for TEL research funding?
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Current trend: A smaller share of a smaller
pie; stock taking – New focus on large
practice-based trials
Current & future funding squeeze
Politically too important to cut off funding
More focus on industry / exploitation of
research
Need for new strategy / new approach to
funding programme design
Foresight, Roadmapping, strategic planning
The beginning – how it started
1996 Research Associate at Cambridge
University – partly funded from an EU
project
1998 Joined a consortium in its making
1999 First proposal – success! –
UNIVERSAL project (Lecturer at the
University of Manchester, then Lancaster)
€170,000 (overall project grant: ca. €5M)
The UNIVERSAL IST project
20 institutions from around Europe
Big idea: A common platform to enable
Europe’s Universities to share learning
resources (still relevant!)
Great fun - Research into semantic web,
ontologies, use of metadata, evaluation of
e-learning resources
http://zope.cetis.ac.uk/content/20020823174106
The legacy of UNIVERSAL
Seminal project – relatively high impact
The Universal Brokerage platform powers
the educanext.org portal
Spawned a variety of other projects on
the management and sharing of learning
resources
Roadmapping projects
IST Project 2002-2004
European Roadmap for
Professional eTraining – (Lancaster & Brunel)
IST Project 2003-2009
Network of Excellence in
Professional Learning
ESAEO Project 2007-2009
Social dialogue for the European
Banking sector
My first role as coordinator
European Digital
Literacy Network
funded by the
programme (2007)
www.estart-net.org
Proposal ranked 2nd out of 167
Network, evaluation, roadmap
Total of €300,000 – largely underfunded
Recent & current projects
eContentPlus project (2008)
Interoperable Content for Performance in a
Competency-driven Society www.icoper.org
eContentPlus project (2008)
Skill based scouting of open
user-generated and community-improved
content for management education and training
DYRECT - Marie Curie Project (2010)
DYnamic Roadmapping with application for EduCation and
Training (eval. 96/100)
Open Discovery Space – started April 2012
Recent projects
Future gazing Technology Enhanced Learning
the roadmap for the unknown learning landscape
FP7 project, €2.2M
Brunel coordinates - 10 partners www.telmap.org
Provides direct input to TEL decision making
EC Negotiations: Despite a score of 14.5, tight
race to the last minute
Web portal: learningfrontiers.eu
making the invisible visible
A professional web portal to monitor and
support the research
developments/achievements on and the
results/impact in TEL.
Current features offer: roadmapping
space,
landscape of researchers, project fact
files, and stories of impact
Open Discovery Space
- started in April 2012
Open Discovery Space
Open Education Europa
ODS is part of this initiative:
http://ec.europa.eu/education/news/2013
0925_en.htm
The Commission launched 'Opening up
Education' to boost innovation and
digital skills in schools and universities
(and address the “implementation gap”)
http://openeducationeuropa.eu
Technology and Open Educational Resources as
opportunities to reshape EU education
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New projects in C&I
FET-ART
explores the interaction between ICT and Art
(started June 2013)
Publicity in Vilnius ICT2013 event
www.ict-art-connect.eu
CRe-AM (Technology Enhanced Creativity)
Roadmapping for the EU creative industries –
bridging the creative sectors with the ICT
communities.
www.cre-am.eu
Slide 17
Creativity REsearch
Adaptive roadMap
(CRe-AM)
Roadmaps for future
research and innovation
www.cre-am.eu
This publication reflects the views only of the author/project
consortium, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for
any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
Aim of CRe-AM
Aim: to provide a collaboration bridge between
the communities of ICT and creative sector, and
to provide consultation and support to both ICT
and creative sector stakeholders and
communities via a long-term Roadmapping
service with which they can actively engage
The main target users will be:
individual creators/workers and professionals, as
well as SMEs, creative groups, communities, and
organizations.
www.cre-am.eu /
Outlook of EU research
funding
current perspectives and future
prospects
The future
HORIZON 2020 objectives
Societal
Challenges
Industrial
leadership
Excellent
Science
3 key objectives
• Integrating the knowledge triangle
• Provides scientific and technical support to the
European policy
ICT 2013: Create, Connect, Grow
6-8 November 2013, Vilnius
ICT in Horizon 2020
the EU's Framework Programme for Research and Innovation for
2014-2020.
Specific objectives:
A meeting point for potential proposers;
A big policy conference;
Understanding change from FP7.
See:
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/ict-2013
Some reflections on EU
research bids
Upsides and downsides
+ (what’s in it for me?)
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Fund your research
Research autonomy
Build interdisciplinary research
Meet a lot of good people – even if not successful,
networking helps
Build broader, lasting collaborations & networks
Team up and work with the best
Take your research to an international level
It’s money for doing something that you like doing
anyway!
Get to travel, go to conferences
Upsides and downsides
- (what will I need to avoid/ compromise with?)
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Research too prescriptive
Communication can be difficult
Coordinator usually overloaded
Administration can be burden (and time consuming)
Get to travel too much
Observations on success
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Clarity and consistency about your vision,
pursue it methodically with patience,
persevere in the face of failure
Big better than small! – organic approach
Make-up of team (spirit, coverage, capacity
mix, size) – early team engagement
Coordination gives you far better control
over the final outcome, but not for everyone
Negotiations are crucial decider
A successful proposal is quite different from
a successful project (EU eval., recruitment)
Observations on EU bids
Fair game, reasonable success rates
No magic wand, no universal rules
Overall team effort
Management support/buy-in
Research admin support helps a lot
Early communication with EC
Project management
- not to be underestimated
- focus on substance, not on admin
Reflections on research
Openness and collaboration is key: We
can only get that far as lone scholars…
Team ethos: honesty, trust, sharing, open,
supportive research environment, coaching
& mentoring, but agile/loose/variable – a
creative mess!
Good use of human resource – “factory of
ideas”
Continuity: build on previous success
Reflections on academic success
International collaborations are important for
success of a research University
Healthy community of PhD students is equally
important for success
Funding is not that important for doing
research (but it certainly helps!) – focus more
on output, rather than input
Thank you
Ahlia University, Bahrain 29/8/2013
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