Research Projects design & management Centre (RPC)
The Research Projects design & management Centre (RPC) strengthens HU’s institutional capacity to design, coordinate, and sustain externally funded research projects. It supports strategic alignment, collaborative governance within consortia, and high-quality implementation across the full research project lifecycle.
Objective
The objective of RPC is to embed robust project design and management practices within HU research. By strengthening institutional coordination, governance, and lifecycle thinking, RPC enables research teams to initiate, lead, and sustain complex, collaborative projects aligned with societal challenges and partner ecosystems, funding frameworks, and HU’s strategic research ambitions.
Results
- Strengthened capacity for research project design and coordination
- Improved governance and role clarity within multi-partner collaborations
- Greater sustainability of externally funded research initiatives
How we work
Operating across different levels, RPC connects research strategies with practice by fostering shared methods, reflective learning, and cross-institutional collaboration. This approach enhances consistency, scalability, and long-term impact by strengthening HU’s role within collaborative research programmes.
Projectupdates
Kick-off RPC Impact Day: a strong start for impact-driven research
On 21 January, the Lectorate Organisaties in Digitale Transitie, together with the Lectorate Procesinnovatie & Informatiesystemen, participated in an inspiring training day on research impact. Under the guidance of Mohamed Eledeisy and Xiao Peng, colleagues explored how impact can be meaningfully embedded into research projects right from the very start. In an interactive setting, participants worked with core concepts related to impact and examined how these principles are applied within national and European funding programs. By connecting theory to concrete examples, it became clear how impact can be shaped throughout the entire project cycle, from design and implementation to long‑term value creation.
RPC Training Day on Research Impact
The training day, organized by the Research Projects Design and Management Centre (RPC), marked the launch of a new series of trainings aimed at strengthening project management and leadership skills within research. Highlights of the session included the emphasis on impact as a fundamental component of project development, the exploration of funding criteria, the sharing of experiential insights on impact design and implementation, and opportunities for collective reflection and knowledge exchange.
The day concluded with a guided group reflection, enabling participants to deepen their key insights and set the direction for the upcoming sessions. With this promising start, RPC continues to build the expertise needed to realize research that truly makes a difference.
Updates to the next training sessions will follow.
EU.ACE network: empowering higher education through quality micro-credentials.
Last week, the European Universities on Academic Continuing Education (ACE) network visited our HU. The HU works together within this network to strengthen education for professionals. All week there were workshops and presentations by experts, with experiences from knowledge institutions like Le Cnam in Paris, HSLU in Luzern, Turku UAS in Finland and more EU.ACE partners. From KC DBM, Senior Project Manager Mohamed Eledeisy held a session on European collaboration for institutional innovation and flexible pathways.
About EU ACE
EU.ACE is a consortium of ten European knowledge institutions focused on the development of innovative, tailor-made lifelong development pathways as an integral part of the European education area and knowledge infrastructure in the EU. The network hopes to anchor lifelong-development more strongly in the European Higher Education Area. To this end, among other things, they have formulated a Living Paper, containing a European Framework to include lifelong development as the fourth pillar of the Bologna Process. In December, this paper, to which the HU also contributed, was presented in Brussels.
About the EU ACE visit
EU.ACE was held at HU from 23 to 27 March 2026. They participated in the learning network week "Education for all: empowering higher education through quality micro-credentials." After all, how do you develop successful, stackable micro-credential programmes? How do you string together flexible, stackable modules into a recognised degree? And how do you use online, 'blended' education to improve people's career prospects worldwide? These and other topics were covered over the five days of the visit.
European collaboration for institutional innovation and flexible pathways
One of the sessions at the ACE visit was led by Senior Project Manager Mohamed Eledeisy, where he talked about the importance of European collaboration for course development. In his role at the Research Projects design & management Centre (RPC) he facilitated several projects that focus on the development of digital skills for professionals. During the talk he highlighted the projects Digital4Sustainability,SMARCO and ARISA. These are collaborative projects that work on strategy and curriculum development for digital and AI skills for European professionals.
PI&IS and ODT Team Day Training: A Systematic Approach to Research Objective-setting
During a recent teammiddag for the lectorates Process Innovation and Information Systems (PI&IS) and Organisations in Digital Transition (ODT) research groups and team members participated in an intensive workshop session. The 'Research Project Design | Objective-setting Workshop' addressed the fundamental principles of transforming research ideas into structured actions. The training focused on five learning outcomes:
- being able to guide the design process of research projects
- gaining insight into the elements and full lifecycle of a research project
- understanding the principles of effective goal-setting and objective development
- being able to analyze evaluation and review processes through a real case study
- apply key concepts in a hands-on workshop setting
The activity served as a hands-on practicum where participants worked together to apply systematic frameworks and tools to applied research ideas, transforming abstract concepts into logical presentations of ideas. By considering the full scope of the Project Cycle Management (PCM) and utilizing methodologies such as the Logical Framework Matrix (LFM), researchers evaluated and refined their project architectures. As a result of this collaborative effort, participants developed multi-layered project objectives for diverse initiatives, including a partnership proposal addressing AI in the transition towards a circular building industry.
By aligning research ambitions with evaluation criteria, participants enhanced their ability to design specific and achievable large-scale, strategically positioned goals for collaborative partnerships and long-term initiatives. This session is part of the Research Projects Design & Management Centre’s (RPC) mission to embed robust project design practices across PI&IS, ODT.
HU researchers involved in the research
