Last week, partners from Science2Society (S2S) met in Madrid to keep working towards improving the European innovation system. Representatives from Siemens, Fiat Research Centre, Fraunhofer and Cambridge University, among others* discussed ideas on how to take European innovation to the next level.

The meeting also celebrated the presence of the project’s high-level Advisory Board, formed by leading international experts such as Michael Heiss (Siemens), Muriel Desaeger (Toyota Motor Europe), George D. Watt (CA Technology), Lidia Borrell-Damian (European University Association [EUA]), and Roberto Martínez (Big Data Value Association [BDVA] and TU Madrid). The enriching discussion between project partners and the Advisory Board led to relevant advances and contributions to the project.

Science2Society is a European-funded project that brings together open innovation practitioners and experts, with the goal to increase the throughput capacity of the European innovation system focusing on Open innovation and Science 2.0.

“It is necessary to look with a practical eye into the collaboration processes between main actors, namely university, RTOs and industry. We invite all Open Innovation practitioners to join our S2S community, learn and contribute with your experience” says Harilaos Vasiliadis, Senior Innovation Consultant at Bax & Company and S2S project lead.

S2S emerges from the belief that to foster innovation and increase its social impact, a closer collaboration between academia and industry is needed. To achieve that, S2S partners are working to identify the most efficient models to innovate in a collaborative way. The project also analyses how these models can be improved and pilots different experiments to validate the optimised university-industry-society interfaces.

Science2Society focuses on improving awareness and practical performance in the following university-industry-society interfacing schemes:

• Co-creation
• Co-location
• Collaborative R&D&I projects
• Inter-sectorial mobility
• Collaboration through big data and science 2.0
• University knowledge Transfer
• Online knowledge Marketplaces

Science2Society project was created in response to the Horizon 2020 call topic INSO-4-2015 – “Innovative schemes for open innovation and science 2.0”. The proposal was successfully selected and funded by the European Commission with a total budget of € 2.85M (2016-2018).

Bax & Company supported the development of the H2020 proposal for the call topic since the early conceptualisation phase, and is now a key partner in the consortium.

If you are interested in discussing opportunities for collaboration or joining the S2S community, please contact our team.

*S2S partners include representatives from University: KU Leuven (project coordinator), KIT-IPEK, CIT-UPC, Cambridge University’s IfM-ECS, TU Darmstadt, and Aalto University; Industry: Fiat Research Centre, Siemens Industry Software, CA Technologies, and ATOS Spain; Research and Technology Organizations: Fraunhofer LBF, Virtual Vehicle, JIIP; and SMEs: I2M, Bax & Company, Spirit Design, Innoget, and EY CogniStreamer.