The UAB's Innovation Week 2025 to connect research, talent and businesses in an activity packed programme
From 21 to 24 October, the UAB will host a new edition of its Innovation Week, an initiative that brings together researcher, knowledge transfer and entrepreneurshop in the business ecosystem and society. With different activities open to a variety of publics, the Innovation Week consolidates itself as a key space in which to foster collaborations, boost emerging technologies, and give value to the knowledge generated on campus.
The third edition of the Innovation Week, organised by the UAB Research Park, will include the participation of research groups, spin-offs, companies, public entities and students, and will offer conferences, fairs, workshops, prizes and thematic sessions on areas such as artificial intelligence, health, agri-food and gender equality in scientific entrepreneurship.
Innovation Fair and display of entrepreneurial projects
The week will be inaugurated on Tuesday 21 October at 10:00 a.m. at the Exe Campus Hotel with one of the central activities, the Innovation Fair, a day of meetings between companies and research groups and spin-offs from the campus to showcase services, technologies and innovative projects developed at the UAB. With more than 200 registered organisations—including 65 research groups, 10 spin-offs and 70 companies—the objective is to promote mutual knowledge, detect synergies and open new avenues for collaboration and transfer.
In addition, this year during the fair a podcast will be recorded, presented by journalist Oriol Llop. The main presentation will be given by Carme Artigas, an expert in big data, artificial intelligence and technological innovation and former Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence.
That same afternoon, at 3:15 p.m., a meeting will take place under the title Emprèn UAB: Generating Spin-offs and Start-ups from University, which will bring together companies created at University, students, entrepreneurs, entities and investors to exchange experiences.
The day will culminate at 6:30 p.m. with the Eines Awards gala, organised by the UAB Chair in Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation (CREIS) at the Ateneu de Cerdanyola to recognise the best social transformation projects.
Art, artificial intelligence and innovation in health
On 22 October innovation will be linked to creative disciplines and applications in health. Starting at 10:00 a.m., the Arts, Innovation and Artificial Intelligence conference will be held in the Theatre Hall and Plaça Cívica, a proposal from the UAB-Cruïlla Chair that will explore how artificial intelligence is transforming the artistic and cultural world. The conference will include debates, concerts and demonstrations that will expose the possibilities of technology applied to artistic events.
On the same day, at 11:00 a.m., the activity Innovating in Health: Virtual and Immersive Reality in Primary Healthcare will be held in the Eureka building, at the UAB Research Park. This event, organised by the Jordi Gol Institute for Research in Primary Care (IDIAPJGol), will focus on how immersive technologies—such as virtual reality—can improve clinical practice, especially in the field of primary care and community health. This will be followed at 12:45 p.m. by the presentation of the UAB Virtual Reality Community, promoted by the UAB Open Labs.
At the same time, at 10:00 a.m., the Espai Enric Granados in Cerdanyola will offer a session of the IND+I Club, a initiative for social innovation and industrial transformation promoted by the Cerdanyola City Council, in which several books on innovation and industry will be presented and industrial and technological geostrategy will be debated.
Female Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship will be the star of the last two days of the week. On Thursday 23 October at 9:45 a.m., the Emprèn UAB space will host the Learn to Innovate Disruptively session, a practical training on how to develop groundbreaking ideas and turn them into viable projects, aimed especially at students and entrepreneurs on campus. And at 12 noon, the Barberà del Vallès City Council and the Barberà Promoció Foundation will organise BarbEmprèn, a day of collaborative innovation to promote sustainable entrepreneurship and the transition to the circular economy. Through a real challenge posed by a local company and an innovative methodology based on the hackathon format, participants will work in teams to devise creative and viable solutions to a problem with environmental impact.
Finally, on Friday 24 October the week will conclude with the Women's Science and Entrepreneurship conference, which will begin at 9:45 a.m. in the UAB Theatre Hall. This activity will highlight the role of women in scientific research and entrepreneurship, and will offer spaces for meeting and debate with researchers and entrepreneurs who lead high-impact projects. The aim is to give visibility to role models, detect barriers and promote equal opportunities in the innovation ecosystem.
Innovation Week is open to the entire university community, research and transfer professionals, companies, public institutions, social entities and anyone interested in the transformative potential of knowledge.
All activities are free, but those interested must sign up beforehand. The full programme is available through the official website: https://webs.uab.cat/setmanainnovacio/