The UAB to hold the international ECIU Creathon with fifty European students

The ECIU Creathon at the UAB will bring together some fifty international students from twelve European universities, students of different disciplines who will work together on real challenges.

The opening session included the institutional welcome by the Rector of the UAB, Javier Lafuente, who highlighted the value of bringing together students from different countries and fields of knowledge to jointly address societal challenges. “This is a clear example of how people from different universities and ways of thinking can come together to work collaboratively,” he stated. The Rector encouraged participants to make the most of the experience, stressing the importance of mutual learning: “Connect with students from other universities, learn and teach, because this is what we expect from you.”

The welcome session also featured contributions from the Dean of the Faculty of Education, Marta Bertran, who emphasized the educational opportunities offered by challenge-based learning and the importance of developing key competencies for the society of the future, and from the institutional ECIU coordinator at the UAB, Mireia Galí, who underlined the disciplinary and cultural diversity of the students as one of the alliance’s main added values, as well as the high level of consolidation of the ECIU project.

This opening session, which was held at 9:00 a.m. at the UAB Faculty of Education, has marked the start of three collaborative and interdisciplinary work days using the challenge-based learning methodology.

This edition, entitled "Building Inclusive Futures: Care, Community and Mobility", focuses on social inclusion, community cohesion, sustainable mobility and urban and rural heritage in Catalonia. Participants will tackle two different types of challenges: a rural context challenge, related to accessibility and the valorisation of heritage in the Pallars Jussà and Noguera counties, and an urban challenge focusing on the UAB campus and the connection to its natural and urban surroundings.

The programme combines work sessions at the UAB with field research activities. On Wednesday 6 May the teams working on the rural challenge will visit various heritage sites in the Catalan Pyrenees, such as Pobla de Segur, Orcau, the Mur Castle and Roca dels Bous, with the aim of exploring proposals that connect economic activity, heritage and innovation as a means to promote rootedness and a more sustainable development of the region.

At the same time, the participants in the urban challenge will carry out fieldwork in the centre of Cerdanyola del Vallès and will hold meetings with institutional agents and local actors to transform the area around the Riu Sec to make it a connecting axis between the city and campus. The aim is to rethink this space—currently fragmented and not very accessible—as a green corridor that improves mobility on foot and by bicycle, reinforces environmental quality, and generates new spaces for relationships between the university community and citizens.

The creathon will culminate on Thursday 7 May with the public presentation of the prototypes developed by the teams at the COMTEC facilities, located in the UAB's Communication Library and General Newspaper Archives. In this final session, the groups will present their proposals to a jury made up of lecturers and experts, and the winning group will be announced.

The challenges have been proposed by the Cerdanyola del Vallès City Council, the Lleida Museum, the Association of Rural and Maritime Initiatives of Catalonia, the Orígens Geopark (located in the Catalan Pyrenees), and the Ramon Muntaner Institute. With this initiative, the UAB reinforces its commitment to connecting training, innovation and surroundings in the same space, while incorporating the international aspect and consolidating its active role within the European university alliance.

More information: ECIU Alliance