Research projects

Developing customised

career pathways

The project Building R&I Talent Ecosystems to Advance Careers in Health Innovation (BREATH) aims to establish a well-structured and sustainable talent ecosystem in health innovation (HI) across three key European regions—Catalonia, Flanders, and Lithuania. Within this ecosystem, talent managers from academic and non-academic institutions will work together to drive institutional change and implement initiatives that strengthen research careers, foster talent retention, and support mobility.

‘To achieve this, BREATH will engage stakeholders in assessing the current needs of the HI ecosystem’, says Begoña Miñarro Vivas, Institutional Projects Office at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. ‘Including labour market demands, skills gaps, and emerging career pathways.’ Building on this analysis, the project will provide early-career researchers (ECRs) with tailored tools and guidance. ‘We have two main objectives: to deliver personalised training by co-developing customised career pathways, identifying essential skills, and addressing gaps with targeted training modules, and to offer individualised guidance through enhanced career support services at partner universities.’

BREATH will pilot and evaluate these new pathways, training programmes, and guidance services across the three regions, generating evidence-based policy recommendations to improve research career management at national and European levels.

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A diverse network

The BREATH consortium brings together a diverse network of partners from three European regions, combining expertise in research, innovation, and talent management. In Catalonia, it includes Biocat – BioRegion of Catalonia Foundation, the Agency for Management of University and Research Grants (AGAUR), the Department of Research and Universities of the Government of Catalonia (DREU) as an affiliated entity, and WeDo | Project Intelligence Made Easy, which supports project intelligence and innovation analytics. From ECIU side, the project involves Kaunas University of Technology (KTU), the Innovation Agency Lithuania (IA), and the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport (SMSM), contributing innovation policy and strategic guidance.
In Flanders, the consortium partners are Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL), Biovia a health innovation cluster and the Council of European Bioregions (CEBR), bringing academic excellence and cross-border collaboration expertise.