Amman- 22 December 2022
The German Jordanian University (GJU) launched the GJU Innovates Program, which aims to build capabilities and manage innovation at the university by training administrative and academic staff as internal innovation ambassadors and spreading the culture of leadership and innovation in society.
During the ceremony, the President of GJU, Prof. Ala’aldeen Al-Halhouli, stated that the program seeks to prepare the university cadres to contribute to an effective transformation towards excellence and uniqueness and to support the strategic pillars of the university represented in instilling a culture of research, innovation, and entrepreneurship, producing high-quality research outputs, and achieving excellence in long-term administrative performance on the long term.
Dr. Al-Halhouli also stressed the importance of everyone adopting the trend of transformation towards innovation and leadership, which requires thinking as one society to change the concept of higher education and serve and develop the country, indicating that the university's strategic decision to adopt innovation capacities is the main axis of building the university during the next five years.
For his part, Dr. Abdul Rahman Zureik, Advisor to the President for Innovation, Technology Transfer, and Entrepreneurship stated that the program included several axes. The most important of which is clarifying the concept of institutional innovation and how to build institutional innovation systems according to the preference of international best practice references, indicating that more than 20 % of the university's cadres have received intensive training during the past five months on how to build a culture of institutional innovation.
In turn, the Dean of Innovation, Technology Transfer, and Entrepreneurship, Dr. Nidal Al-Shawawra, pointed out the opportunities for the university to be the first in the region to adopt innovation as a means for university growth in Jordan and the Middle East, stressing the importance of the collective effort to achieve success in this field.
At the end of the ceremony, which was attended by representatives of the Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Digital Economy, Orange Jordan, and the Business Development Center, Dr. Al-Halhouli distributed certificates of “innovation ambassadors” to one hundred and fifty employees of the teaching and administrative staff at the GJU who have been trained so far.
