Higher Education Global Evidence Summit: Poster Sessions - Innovation
Supporting and Seeding Research and Innovation Within and Between Universities
- Rebecca Malouin, Director, Michigan State University
- Amelia Odo, Senior Lecturer, University of Nigeria, Nsukka
The study’s objective was to implement a grant writing workshop, provide seed funding for grant proposals, and identify research partnerships and innovation areas between the two universities. Both institutions’ senior research faculty presented a hybrid grant writing workshop to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka faculty, and doctoral students from March 22-25, 2021. Following the workshop, the investigators developed a call for grant proposals for pilot grants. Faculty from both universities selected seven of 26 applications to award grant funding. Based on the success of the grant writing workshop, the Director of Research at the UNN has committed funding to develop a Writing Center, with technical support from the Michigan State University Writing Center. Skills development to enable partners to be true research partners, provision of seed funding for pilot data, and matchmaking potential research colleagues can lead to sustainable institutional growth and innovation between and across institutions.
Diagnostic Tool to Assess Innovation Readiness in Philippine Higher Education Institutions
- Mir Shariff Tillah, Senior Education Adviser, USAID
- Rossana Zetina-Beale, Senior Innovation Policy Analyst, RTI International
The poster presentation focused on the design, implementation, and benefits of an institutional diagnostic tool (IDT) for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The poster captured the methodology and results of the assessment developed with a local partner association of 112 public HEIs to measure their innovation capacity. The experience may be valuable to other countries facing similar challenges in answering the critical question on the innovation theme on how the coordination and governance of HEI systems can be improved to support private sector engagement and innovation ecosystems.
Facilitating Scholars to Apply Human-Centered Design Thinking in CAES
- Fredrick Bagamba, Senior Lecturer, Makerere University College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
- Jackline Bonabana-Wabbi, Associate Professor and Program Manager, CAES-ISP, Makerere University
The CAES-ISP is an innovation scholars program supporting academic staff and top administrators of Makerere University’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences to develop innovative ways to enhance teaching and learning. The CAES-ISP offers the opportunity to academic staff to work as interdisciplinary teams to solve food-system problems that are relevant to food in Africa while at the same time offering the CAES leadership team an opportunity to reinvigorate the innovation culture within the College. It consists of two tracks: The Academic track and the Top Management track. It was built on the model that fosters Human-centered Design Thinking among scholars. It is implemented to contribute to five grand challenges, namely: preparing students effectively for changing international and local markets; preparing students for self-driven career paths; developing innovative technology for the market; strengthening CAES’ influence in policy decision making, and developing a thriving CAES innovation environment.
Introduction to Development Engineering: A New Open Access Graduate-Level Textbook
- Anustubh Agnihotri, Doctoral Student, University of California, Berkeley
- Ashok Gadgil, Faculty Senior Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Despite increasing focus on the promise of technology for meeting SDGs, enormous challenges remain to harness innovation for social impact around the world. The emerging interdisciplinary field of Development Engineering (DevEng) seeks to improve our understanding of how to better design and implement technological innovations in resource-constrained settings. The DevEng field merges research insights from social sciences and engineering and provides a framework for their application to poverty alleviation and economic growth. The presentation will showcase the new Open Access textbook “Introduction to Development Engineering: A Framework with Applications from the Field.” The book offers an overview, and 19 real-world case studies demonstrating how interdisciplinary learning and awareness of contextual constraints can help new technologies for adoption and scaling. The book is co-authored by pioneering faculty, researchers, and senior doctoral students, and is already being used as the core text for UC Berkeley’s new Master of Development Engineering program.
Development of an End-User Oriented Curriculum and Cultivation of an Innovation Ecosystem
- Richard Chilipa, Professor, Malawi University of Science and Technology
- Timothy Robert Silberg, Outreach Specialist, Michigan State University
Higher education institutions (HEIs) are asked to advance innovations to address local problems adapted to end-user needs; this is not an easy process. The ecosystem needed to facilitate this process faces several challenges, as it rarely invites end-user input throughout the process. When it does, iteration is seldom practiced based on these end-user inputs. To create a space for iteration, a curriculum named the “innovation toolkit” was created by the faculty of Malawi University of Science and Technology (MUST), with the support of Michigan State University (MSU). The toolkit facilitates the application of Human-Centered Design at HEIs. This poster presentation will introduce a process for developing the curriculum collaboratively with international partners. By the end of the presentation, attendees learned about the 14 modules created, the iterations involved in creating the curriculum, and how it guides students and faculty to implement end-user-oriented innovations for local problems.