Innovation Week bring together over 500 professionals and offers its innovative ecosystem to its neighbours

20/10/2023

The Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) today reached the end of its first Innovation Week. The event, which brought together more than 500 professionals, once again demonstrated the University's commitment to innovation and reaffirmed its will to foster university-business collaboration. For five days, more than 300 researchers, 150 business people and 60 entrepreneurs met at the UAB to explore synergies and learn about the different innovation projects on campus.

From Monday 16 until Friday 20 October, more than 250 meetings were held between different institutional, business and academic actors with the aim of establishing synergies and exploring ways of collaboration. The programme also included different round tables and conferences to promote the transfer of knowledge and technology with a social and economic return for society.

Matchmaking, co-creation and innovation, keys to the UAB Innovation Fair

The Innovation Fair, held on Tuesday, was one of the highlights of the week. Throughout the day there were conferences and round tables to study synergies between university projects and different companies in Catalonia, as well as a large exhibition of research groups, services and innovative projects generated on the UAB campus. In addition, the programme also included a matchmaking and co-creation session for projects that brought together more than 25 start-ups and 90 R&D&i groups with 74 businesses and entities interested in working together on innovative challenges.

Javier Lafuente, rector of the UAB, was in charge of inaugurating the conference, held at the Hotel Exe Campus, accompanied by Lluis Juncà, director general of Innovation and Entrepreneurship of the Generalitat de Catalunya and Tania Nadal, president of the UAB Social Council. In his opening speech, Javier Lafuente pointed out that "the UAB is in a privileged position in terms of R&D at European level, and we have the capacity to be a source of impact, improvement and progress for the economy and the environment. Our ambition is to connect our research with the challenges of society".

Rosa Maria Sebastián, Vice Rector for Innovation, Transfer and Entrepreneurship at the UAB and director of the UAB Research Park added: "Our university has demonstrated its ability to promote competitive projects in business and research that have a significant social and economic impact for the whole environment and people".

Awards for social transformation projects

The Eines 2023 awards ceremony was also held on Tuesday at the Mercat Vell in Mollet del Vallès, awarded by the UAB, Mollet del Vallès City Council, the county councils of Vallès Occidental and Vallès Oriental and the Barcelona Provincial Council, institutions that make up the Chair in Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation, attached to the Centre for Studies and Research in Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation (CREIS).

Three Catalan, regional and local social transformation projects were honoured at the third edition of these awards, which recognise social transformation activities framed within the 17 sustainable development goals of the United Nations. The winners were the projects Bolet Ben Fet, Green Hospital and Dones d'Aigua, committed to the inclusion of people with disabilities in the workplace, the production of organic food and the elimination of CO2 emissions.

Synergy between artificial intelligence and music, main focus of Thursday's session

Innovation Week was also a space for reflection and debate. On Thursday, various workshops and round tables were held at the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts to reflect on the role of artificial intelligence in music. Artists, technologists and sociologists discussed the advantages and disadvantages of the application of AI in music. During the session, David Casacuberta, researcher in the Department of Philosophy at the UAB, pointed out that "artificial intelligence is one of the four most important tools in the history of music".

The day ended with a unique musical experience, the concert "Bach to the moon", which combined the UAB choir and the pianist and creator Carlos Marigó with the ia_muso system of Matthew Yee-King, from Goldsmiths University of London. In the concert, a proposal that touched participants with its mixture of human voices and digital frequencies, it was clear that innovation is also a term deeply linked to art and music.

The promotion of female entrepreneurship closes this year's edition of the conference

On Friday, the session entitled "Women's Science and Entrepreneurship: overcoming the impostor syndrome" focused on the internal and external limitations faced by female researchers, as well as challenges and strategies to overcome the impostor syndrome and break the glass ceiling.

The event was introduced by Laia Arnal, director general of Knowledge Transfer and Society of the Department of Research and Universities of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Esther Zapater, secretary general of the UAB, and Alicia Bosch Palma, vice-president of the Social Council.

Leading experts and professionals shared their knowledge, research and practical experiences: Teresa Tarragó, co-founder and executive director of the biotech company BeyondYou; Núria Salán, president of the Catalan Society of Technology; Mariona Serra, co-founder of GoodGut and former president of the University-Business Commission of the UAB Social Council; Ana Caño Delgado, CRAG researcher and founder of PLANET Biotech; Maria Teresa Sordé Martí, professor of Sociology at the UAB, principal investigator of the H2020 REFUGE-ED project and affiliated to the GEDIME-CER-Migrations group at the UAB; Teresa Baró, president of the entrepreneurship commission of the International Foundation for Women Entrepreneurship (FIDEM); and Silvia Solà, UAB Language Service public speaking coach.

UAB Rector Javier Lafuente gave the closing speech of the Innovation Week highlighting the great reception of the event and celebrating "the magnitude of the innovative ecosystem of the UAB and the potential we have on campus to transfer knowledge to society".

The UAB Innovation Week received the support of the UAB Social Council, the Catalan  Ministry for Business and Employment, Santander Universities, and El País as media partner. In addition, the activity is part of the Spain Up Nation strategy and is funded by the European Union-Next Generation EU, within the Recovery and Resilience Plan of the Government of Spain, led by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism through the School of Industrial Organisation EOI.