Research and innovation strategy for the civis alliance
RIS4CIVIS is proposed by the CIVIS European University Alliance members: Universities from eight countries (BE DE EL ES FR IT RO SE), led by Aix-Marseille Université. In line with the Horizon2020 Work Programme objective to contribute to European Universities’ Research & Innovation (R&I) dimension, RIS4CIVIS will enable (A) the CIVIS Alliance and (B) European universities to maximise their potential to address 21st Century challenges through world-class R&I.
For CIVIS to achieve this objective, we will develop an integrated, long-term R&I Strategy, based on our complementary strengths, but also addressing obstacles that stand in the way of deeper R&I cooperation in the following six fundamental areas: 1/ a Common R&I Strategy; 2/ Sharing infrastructures; 3/ Reinforcing Academia-Business R&I Cooperation; 4/ Strengthening Human Capital; 5/ Mainstreaming Open Science; 6/Embedding Citizens and Society.
For each of these areas, we will: 
- Through Benchmarking, establish the current situation across our Alliance and define the ideal endpoint;
- Through Consensus-Building, identify Roadmaps to reach these endpoints and to remove legal, regulatory, financial or other barriers in the short-, medium- and long-term: where the removal of barriers is not in our hands, develop Recommendations to national and European policy-makers on the way forward;
- Through Case Studies, start implementing our Roadmaps, thereby testing and validating them.
The knowledge gained in each of these activities, across all six areas, will inform our development of the CIVIS Research & Innovation Strategy. For other European universities, we will synthesise our six Roadmaps, as well as the benchmarking, consensus-building and case studies that went into them, into a CIVIS Institutional Transformation Model to serve as a source of inspiration for other European Universities wishing to engage in R&I cooperation as well as for the European Commission in designing its future programmes and policies.