Firts Innovation Camp of CatLabs
Firts Innovation Camp of CatLabs. Author: Xarxa CatLabs. License: All rights reserved.

This meeting was intended to test in Catalonia the possibilities offered by the methodology of innovation Camps, promoted by the European Commission and the Committee of the Regions as a tool to articulate and promote open, social and collaborative innovation.

The aim is taht the public authorities, businesses, research and innovation agents and citizens can effectively and collectively face economic and social challenges that require complex answers. The camp has focused on the role that CatLabs agents (who work directly with the public) can play in the process of opening the innovation system of Catalonia, to make it more inclusive.

The camp of innovation has been divided into four working groups, each of which has focused on co-design and co-creation of new solutions for a complex social challenge, which promotes a public entity:

  1. How can you bring society (citizens, governments and businesses) to challenge the university?, sponsored by the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
  2. How to open the city to quadruple helix innovation model for the city and citizens to become more innovative?, sponsored by the City of Mataro.
  3. The labor labs could to generate employment opportunities in emerging areas?, challenge that puts the focus on people with difficulties in accessing the labor market and promotes the Employment Service of Catalonia.
  4. How can we get citizens to become the engine of change towards a new model of circular economy?, challenge launched by the Waste Agency of Catalonia and the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Food of the Government of Catalonia.

The results of the process of co-creation focuses on proposals for pilot projects. The idea is that they can serve as a reference or model to integrate dynamic quadruple helix universities, cities and public policies aimed at solving social challenges. It is anticipated that these pilot projects are presented at the end of September, at the conference "The network CatLabs, a key innovation system of Catalonia."

This initiative has been organized under the CatLabs program of the Generalitat of Catalonia, through the departments of the Presidency and the Vice Presidency and Treasury.

In this video, released in May, we showed how they were working in the definition of the methodology of the innovaion camp.

Source: Catalonia 2020