One of the goals of any university is the realisation of R&D projects. An example of the a project that is aligned with S3 of the Lodz region, that is realised at the Faculty of Electrical, Electronic, Computer and Control Engineering, in the Institute of Electronics, is the European project Sound of Vision (http://www.soundofvision.net/), which will design, implement and validate an original non-invasive hardware and software system to assist visually impaired people by creating and conveying an auditory representation of the surrounding environment.
The Lodz University of Technology is particularly active in this field, and as there is an increasing number of calls for proposals launched by the regional government bodies, connected with S3 strategy, the projects developed by the respective Faculties/Departments/Institutes have to be aligned with the S3 of the region. Otherwise it would be much more difficult to obtain financing from such calls. The projects that are not connected with S3 can still be developed, however, the financing will not come from the regional institutions, but the national ones.
The regional smart specialisations are based on the leading industrial and service sectors of the Lodz region. Since those sectors are constantly evolving and developing, the Lodz University of Technology had to adjust its educational offer, by for example offering new types of studies (e.g. Textiles Design, Commodity Science, etc.), because it had to prepare graduates for new types of jobs offered by companies in the region. Respective units of the University (departments/institutes) take part in projects connected with the S3 areas, because it is a necessity in order to get for example financial support for their realisation. If a project is not connected with S3 then it is much harder to get grants for it.
As far as the authors of the case study are concerned there has been no adjustment in the policy of the Lodz University of Technology to the S3 thematic areas, yet. It can be caused by the fact that the S3 strategy for the Lodz region was developed not so long ago (in 2015), and to change the structure takes a lot of time, as it has to be accepted by the proper decisive units of the University. The fact that in 2016 there were elections of the new Rector and vice-Rectors also has much influence on the lack of policy changes.
One of the persons interviewed for the needs of preparation of this case study was the vice-director of the International Faculty of Engineering, an organisational structure that provides studies only in foreign languages (English and French), and the second questionnaire was completed by the office of the Vice-Rector for Science.