For more than a decade NTNU has been successfully supporting a carefully selected set of particularly strong and internationally visible research and technology areas as institutional strategic priorities, with the aim of supporting interdisciplinary research and education and enhancing the international visibility of these strong overarching research areas. With an in-depth analysis and external view, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology wanted to assess the effectiveness of its Strategic Priority Areas as a strategic steering instrument. As chair of the international evaluation panel, Reichert helped design the evaluation process and questionnaires and wrote the final report of the international panel, which showed the achievements and added value of the strategic instrument as well as recommending some measures to embed the strategic priority areas even more strongly in the regular institutional strategic development and governance. The external panel’s report, which was submitted on 24 June 2022 and which Reichert presented to the institutional and faculty leadership on 30 August 2022, served as stimulus for the adaptation of the SPA instrument for future strategic development cycles.
From April to June 2022, Reichert chaired the International Panel which was responsible for the institutional review report which formed part of the reaccreditation process. Regular institutional reaccreditation of all universities is legally required by the national external institutional review procedures and is implemented by the Centre for Quality Assessment in Higher Education – SKVC, as part of the Lithuanian quality assurance system.
As member of the Steering Committee of the European Commission’s Project Knowledge Ecosystems, Reichert contributed to the large-scale study which addresses the need for a strengthened European Research Area (ERA) through enhanced interconnected Knowledge Ecosystems or ERA Knowledge Hubs across Europe. By collecting strategic intelligence and piloting potential measures, the study contributes to the implementation of the ERA Communication in relation to four of its strategic priorities: ’Nourishing talents for excellence’, ‘European Research Career Framework’, ‘Strengthening the public science system through synergies with the European Education Area’, and ‘Strengthening innovation ecosystems for knowledge circulation and valorisation’. The study investigates the organisation and spread of ecosystems at EU, national, regional and local levels, the role of universities and research organisations, the circulation of knowledge by individual researchers and innovation talents, as well as the potential legal and financial measures to support research careers and cooperation. It consists of a set of in-depth analyses on the above mentioned themes that were published in 2022 and can be downloaded here.
As member of the Innovation Board of StartMiUp – the joint inter-institutional Startup network of the Universities of Marburg and Gießen and the Technical Universtiy of Applied Science of Mittelhessen – Reichert was able to witness how an excellent third party-funded cluster project (ministry supporting new start-up structures through “EXIST”) is becoming a sustainable thriving network start-up service network supporting entrepreneurial mind set and offering excellent support for start-ups from ideation to venture capital competitions.