Finalist

Entrepreneurial University of the Year Award

U.Porto

Finalist of the Entrepreneurial University of the Year Award

Universidade do Porto - Portugal

"U.Porto – An Entrepreneurial University "without walls”"


Engage on social media

@UPorto
(Official U.Porto Twitter account)
https://www.linkedin.com/school/universidadedoporto/
(Official U.Porto Linkedln Account)
https://www.instagram.com/uporto/
(Official U.Porto Instagram Account)
https://www.facebook.com/universidadedoporto
(Official U.Porto Facebook Account)
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/universidadedoporto
(Official U.Porto Youtube Account)
https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/uportoinovacao
(Official U.Porto Innovation LinkedIn Account)
https://www.instagram.com/u.portoinovacao/
(Official U.Porto Innovation Instagram Account)
https://www.facebook.com/UPortoInovacao/
(Official U.Porto Innovation Facebook Account)
@UPortoInovacao
(Official U.Porto InnovationTwitter account)
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo8KK5sS6V9IibNjuJOK2Zw
(Official U.Porto Innovation Youtube account)
@uptecporto
(Official UPTEC Twitter Account)
https://www.instagram.com/uptec_porto/
(Official UPTEC Instagram Account)
https://www.facebook.com/uptec/
(Official UPTEC Facebook Account)
https://www.linkedin.com/company/uptecporto/
(Official UPTEC LinkedIn Account)
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/UPTEC_PORTO
(Official UPTEC Youtube Account)
https://www.facebook.com/uportotalentoecarreira/
(Official U.Porto Talent & Career Facebook Account)
https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/uportocareer/
(Official U.Porto Talent & Career LinkedIn Account)

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Summary

Innovation is at our university's core, both in knowledge transfer and cocreation, and as an organizational culture. The promotion of innovation, creativity and an entrepreneurial mindset are U.Porto’s core values. Our university acts as a key actor in transforming R&D results into innovative technologies and solutions, fostering smarter and sustainable economic growth, providing a perfect setting to create and develop the best ideas, improving the life of our communities. We create leaders in every subject, ensuring the excellence of our education, research, innovation and community-oriented activities.
UPTEC—U.Porto’s incubator—and U.Porto Innovation—a department that focuses on knowledge transfer and fostering university-industry bonds—have been decisive, with an impact of over 3.800 jobs, 232 active patents, 100 spin-offs, and a 284M€ GDP contribution. Our Talent & Career department focuses on developing an entrepreneurial mindset in students, promoting entrepreneurship as a career path. U.Porto’s entrepreneurial program has a strong international orientation, capitalizing the participation in initiatives such as the European University Alliance for Global Health (EUGLOH), which brings together 9 universities in a multidisciplinary and mission-oriented approach to Global Health, where U.Porto leads a work package dedicated to entrepreneurship and lifelong learning; or the EIT HEI Initiative, where U.Porto leads the INVENTHEI consortium.
Specific actions include business idea competitions, ignition, acceleration, school of startups, proof of concept, missions to international entrepreneurial ecosystems, workshops, training, networking opportunities and a brand new EUGLOH academy for “competencies of the future”.

Key People


Prof. António de Sousa Pereira
Rector
U.Porto



Prof. Joana Resende
Vice-Rector for Strategic Planning, Entrepreneurship and Knowledge Valorization / President
U.Porto / UPTEC



Rodrigo Val D‘Oleiros
Founder/Student/Researcher
Orgavalue/U.Porto/i3S



Gilberto Loureiro
Founder
Smartex



António Rocha
Founder
Smartex



Paulo Ribeiro
Founder
Smartex


Acknowledgements

A special acknowledgment is due to UPTEC and its vibrant entrepreneurial community, U.Porto Innovation, EUGLOH Unit, Talent & Career Unit, for developing the activities described in the present entry, and to U.Porto’s Governance Support Service for collecting information and preparing the submission to final information request.

Images

UPTEC – Investors day #1

UPTEC – Investors day #2

UPTEC – Networking Event #1

UPTEC – Networking Event #2

UPTEC Incubator

U.Porto Innovation - Entreprenow event

i3S

Entrepreneurship promotion activities – Talent & Career #1

Entrepreneurship promotion activities – Talent & Career #2

EUGLOH – Annual Summit

IMPACT STORY

Impacting lifes

Innovation and entrepreneurship are core U.Porto values, developing new ideas and processes that can revolutionize the world, providing significant opportunities for students, alumni and our communities. Rodrigo Val d’Oleiros is a Ph.D. student at U.Porto, a researcher at i3S, a representative at EUGLOH’s student board, winner of start-up awards, and founder of Orgavalue, a company take seeks to transform the organ transplant industry. By recycling organs and injecting new cells from the patient in need, it’s possible to create a personalized organ. Rodrigo explains that this may be a solution for the long waiting lists for organs, saving thousands of lives, while also reducing the environmental impact of medical waste.
Smartex is another example of a sustainable business approach. The company uses hardware-enabled, machine-vision-driven software to detect textile defects during manufacturing. By identifying rejects at the point of origin, it’s possible to reduce textile waste, CO2 emissions, energy, water, production time, and capital expenditure by automatically shutting down production to prevent the waste of materials. Its founders are U.Porto’s alumni and were recognized by Forbes as among Europe's most impactful entrepreneurs (30 under 30 in 2020).
These are two examples, among many, of entrepreneurs that were able to link innovation and sustainability, reflecting the vision of U.Porto to deliver a tangible impact on science, culture, society, and the economic well-being of our communities, transforming into reality the vision of U.Porto as an entrepreneurial university without walls.

LEARNINGS

Lessons learned

U.Porto’s 2030 Strategic Plan guides our action, focusing on sustainability and building a university “without walls”. We want to tear down walls, external and internal, because we are convinced that future success depends on collaboration, on innovation as an organizational principle, and on our contribution to social and economic development, while adopting a global vision anchored in the UN’s 30 Sustainable Development Goals for 2030.
Internationalization and industry partnerships are essential for a university “without walls” that acts as a driver of smarter and sustainable growth. Partnerships were crucial to make U.Porto the host of the European Innovation Academy—the world's largest entrepreneurial summer program—until 2026; and join 8 other European universities in the EUGLOH alliance. Without partnerships, we couldn’t have developed the dozens of university-industry projects financed under the Business Innovation mobilization Agendas/Alliances supported by the Portuguese Recovery and Resilience Plan/NextGenerationEU.
U.Porto offers programs tailored to develop an entrepreneurial mindset, self-confidence, social and other soft skills that empower our students to go beyond academic achievement to become successful entrepreneurs, creating solutions that impact people’s daily lives and our communities through the development of innovative technologies and processes, contributing to create a green, digital, inclusive and sustainable society.
Rodrigo Val d’Oleiros, the founder of Orgavalue, shared his advice to the new generations of entrepreneurs: “Imagine and be creative”, “We are never alone in a team” and “Don’t be afraid of making mistakes; it’s the best you can do to be successful”.

FUTURE PLANS

What's coming?

The success of students, alumni, professors and researchers of our ecosystem and the results of past projects teach us that our impact on society is a continuous journey. U.Porto will continue developing projects in partnership, including industry and international partnerships, aligned with our vision for a sustainable institution serving the scientific, environmental, social and economic development of our communities through innovation, bringing new practices and exciting discoveries.
To address the impact of COVID-19, NextGenerationEU was launched to restore sustained economic growth. In the next years, U.Porto will develop dozens of projects with industry partners to promote business innovation. U.Porto’s research ecosystem, which includes associated Research Institutes, participates in 37 approved projects for Business Innovation mobilization Agendas/Alliances, with a financed investment of 155.5 million euros, mostly under the "Innovation Pact" typology.
UPTEC and U.Porto Innovation will continue to create or host new patents, start-ups and spin-offs, ensuring that the knowledge and innovation produced at U.Porto translates to the development of our communities. Our university will continue hosting the European Innovation Academy, becoming the world’s capital of student entrepreneurship. In the new EUGLOH 2.0, we will train the global health actors of tomorrow, including researchers, innovators and entrepreneurs, experts and practitioners. We will deepen the participation in the EIT initiatives to foster innovation and entrepreneurship and will develop a new phase for the INVENTHEI consortium.
In summary, we will continue to provide all the tools for future leaders to make a lasting and meaningful impact.

KEY STATISTICS

+660

Entrepreneurial projects supported by the University’s incubator (UPTEC – U.Porto Science and Technology Park)

284M€

Impact on GPD of the University’s incubator (UPTEC) [2021]

3rd

Fastest growing tech hub in Europe (UPTEC)

+140

Start-ups incubated at UPTEC [2022]

37

Business Innovation mobilisation Agendas/Alliances (university-industry collaboration) funded by NextGenerationEU

100

Spin-offs in 10 main areas of activity [2022]

232

Active international patents [2022]

936

Patents [2021]

512

Students attended European Innovation Academy 2022

+8.8 M€

EUGLOH complementary funding

+12.250

Students and staff involved in EUGLOH mobility

250

EUGLOH innovative activities, research contests, competitions and innovation challenges

Triple E Awards

The Triple E Awards are a global recognition of efforts toward the quest for entrepreneurship and engagement in higher education. It is the first award to focus specifically on different dimensions of the universities' third mission. Implemented regionally, the Triple E Awards aim to foster change in universities and to emphasize their role in their communities and ecosystems.

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