Exploring Synergies: ULALABS and CEETNOVA

On April 10, Konstantinos Kourkoutas, Coordinator of the ULALABS project, took part in the first in-person meeting of the new Erasmus+ sister project CEETNOVA, hosted at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

CEETNOVA project aims to strengthen knowledge valorisation (KV) across Europe by training "KV Ambassadors"—individuals who act as bridges between academia, industry, and society to turn research into real-world impact.

Like ULALABS, CEETNOVA brings together a consortium of ECIU member universities: University of Stavanger (coordinator), Kaunas University of Technology, University of Trento, Linköping University, and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Notably, three of these—UAB, University of Stavanger, and Linköping University—are also partners in ULALABS.

During the event, Konstantinos shared the experience from the UAB Smart Campus Living Lab, as well as  the UAB Open Labs and the local and regional initiatives developed through co-creation and participatory processes, with a special emphasis of the experience and insights into the use of challenge-based methodology—placing real local challenges at the center of learning and innovation, with the aim to empower students, researchers, and stakeholders to co-design the solutions.

The meeting contributed to mutual learning about the two projects, seeking the potential synergies between ULALABS and CEETNOVA, both of which are Erasmus+ projects rooted in the ECIU University alliance, aligning the efforts and reinforcing members and ECIU’s commitment to transformative education, research, and societal engagement through innovative, challenge-driven approaches.

You can learn about the CEETNOVA project here.