The TECH2X project aims to enhance innovation and entrepreneurship capacity in higher education, foster new deep-tech talent, and support the transition towards the 4th Generation University model.

The project encourages collaboration, networking, and practice-based learning to develop scalable and impactful approaches to innovation and entrepreneurship, with a particular focus on climate and mobility.

The consortium brings together universities, an innovation hub and accelerator, and a world-leading research organisation, combining expertise in business, technology, and design to address societal challenges and advance deep-tech entrepreneurship.

Main objectives of TECH2X include:

• Designing and delivering new education and training programmes on tech-driven innovation.
• Establishing structures to strengthen innovation and entrepreneurship capacity.
• Supporting students and researchers in creating and developing new ventures.
• Expanding networks and ecosystem connections.
• Sharing success stories and best practices.

Within the project, the METU Design Factory represents Middle East Technical University. With its expertise in interdisciplinary innovation and prototyping, it contributes by designing and piloting new courses for students and researchers, supporting deep-tech innovation activities, and leading ecosystem mapping efforts to connect stakeholders and strengthen innovation pathways.

Project website: https://www.tech2x.eu/

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) have emerged as essential tools for evaluating organizational and project-based performance across various industries. An increasing amount of research emphasizes the necessity of shifting from conventional, quantitative, and financially oriented measurements to more process-oriented and context-sensitive methods.

The implementation of KPIs in a range of industries, such as manufacturing, education, healthcare, construction, government, and e-commerce, is examined by Setiawan and Purba (2020) in a thorough analysis of 50 peer-reviewed publications published between 2011 and 2020. According to their findings, the complexity of performance in today’s dynamic, information-based environments cannot be adequately captured by traditional performance measures, which place a strong emphasis on financial and accounting indicators. In order to enable the meaningful application of KPI-based evaluation frameworks, they instead support the adoption of process-oriented organizational structures with clearly defined and standardized procedures.

KPIs are crucial for tracking project success across several dimensions, including cost, time, quality, and stakeholder engagement, according to Maina and Adamu (2022), who support this viewpoint. Their research emphasizes how crucial it is becoming to customize KPIs to the unique objectives, context, and value systems of each project, especially in intricate or multidisciplinary fields. They contend that in order to provide a complete picture of success, effective KPIs must consider both observable results and intangible contributions.
Building on these discoveries, the current project, which is part of the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) framework, suggests creating a new set of qualitative KPIs that are specifically intended to assess R&D activities in the creative industries, with a focus on wearable technology, game development, and filmmaking. By promoting qualitative, context-sensitive performance evaluation that captures innovation, societal relevance, and creative excellence, this initiative aims to replace strict, metric-driven evaluation systems.

Supported by the Middle East Technical University’s (METU) extensive research infrastructure encompassing more than 2,000 faculty members and 37 research centers, this project aims to set a precedent for a more inclusive, fair, and interdisciplinary research evaluation environment.

The ECITE project is co-financed by the European Union and the Republic of Türkiye, with Middle East Technical University (METU) as the beneficiary. The project aims to enhance the competitiveness and sustainability of Türkiye’s creative industries—focusing on gaming, wearable technologies, and next-generation filmmaking—by supporting entrepreneurs, SMEs, freelancers, and spin-offs.

The consortium brings together academic and research centers, innovation hubs, and sectoral stakeholders to combine expertise in technology, design, and creative industries. Together, they address the transformation needs of the creative economy and foster innovation and entrepreneurship in these fast-growing fields.

Main goals of ECITE include:

• Establishing METU Crea, a sectoral hub uniting creative industries under one platform.
• Providing targeted services to strengthen entrepreneurs, SMEs, and freelancers.
• Boosting R&D and sectoral strategies through METU’s ecosystem (Design Factory, GISAM, ATOM).
• Creating new opportunities for training, mentoring, and networking.
• Supporting the integration of creative industries into manufacturing and service sectors to increase competitiveness.

Within ECITE, METU Design Factory plays a central role by leading interdisciplinary innovation and sectoral collaboration, while working closely with GISAM (film and media) and ATOM (gaming and animation) to ensure impact across the creative industries.

Project Website: https://metucrea.com/

The transitions in the global economy, the use of digital technologies in the realm of work and the development of new types of entrepreneurship are changing the profile of jobs.

These changes pose a major challenge to the systems of initial vocational education and training (IVET).
Regarding issues in the IVET system (slowness in updating curricula; the governance models, and sector-specific characteristics), DT4VET aims to pursue a strategy apt to make the IVET system reflective and active in addressing the ever-changing skills demands of the labor market.

The field requires REFLECTIVE Educators: Open to take initiatives responsively; skilled to determine problems and produce solutions; skilled to revise/improve critically their teaching methods/contents even beyond the expectations of the market.

Project Website: http://dt4vet.etu.edu.tr/

DT4VET aims to change the PRAXIS of vocational education. It aims to shift the mindset, values, the practices of people who are educating the future qualified and the entrepreneurial workforce of Europe.

DT4VET considers DESIGN THINKING (DT) as a key method/process to trigger reflective practices in educators. The DT method addresses simultaneously most of the transversal skills, such as the ability to think creatively and critically, take initiative, and work collaboratively for common goals and entrepreneurship competences in a systemic/holistic approach.

The main GOAL of DT4VET is to enhance the transversal skills and entrepreneurship competences of educators teaching at vocational-technical high schools by devising “DT4VET Toolkit” and “DT4VET online training module” that implement “design thinking” into the training of educators.

DT4VET, as a trilateral partnership of 7 partners from 4 countries.