On May 15 and 16, 2023, SMILE Workshop and Project Management Meeting were held at Aalborg University (Denmark). Through virtual attendance, our team have contributed to the development of a scouting function and organization of an Open Entrepreneurs panel at each Higher Educational institution participating in the Smart Manufacturing, Innovation, Learning-labs, and Entrepreneurship project.

The meetings were extremely fruitful and will bring strategically important outcomes for the development of the innovative ecosystem of our university and the whole Ternopil region.

Understanding of the importance of the scouting function in the university, the connections between the academic community, students, business and all stakeholders of the relevant process is extremely important and is to be a priority for ensuring the high competitiveness of the university and the key role in creating innovation.

It is scouting that helps identify potential, talented students and researchers, and also helps establish connections between the academic community, students, business and other stakeholders. This process can create new opportunities for cooperation and development of innovative projects. The importance of building a systematic development of innovation culture, understanding market needs, commercialization of scientific research, collaboration and multidisciplinarity and project-oriented training for the development of real and active startup projects. The university should create an enabling environment that promotes innovation, where students, teachers and researchers can realize their potential and develop new ideas and projects.

TNTU has been represented by Iryna Strutynska, doctor of economics, professor of the Department of computer Sciences, Yuriy Skorenkyy, head of the Physics Department and Nataliia Marynenko, doctor of sciences, professor of Department of economics and finance. They presented the results of scouting process in TNTU and the vision of the development of the Open Entrepreneurs panel at our university. Together with partners, practical steps that should be implemented at TNTU were developed.

Thanks to the systemic conduct of scouting at the university, it is possible to develop the Open Entrepreneurs panel, which, in turn, will promote efficient cooperation between the university, business and other entities (business incubators, accelerators, NGOs, international partners, etc.). Partnership with business can provide access to financing and commercialization of projects, understanding of market opportunities and needs, also on the part of business there should be an understanding of the importance of the scientific component for the development of the innovation ecosystem.