A year after launching the Connèxia program, promoted by the Polytechnic University of Barcelona (UPC) to create synergies between university and companies, the project has four major companies as partners ---Fractus, Schneider Electric, Mecalux and Cetaqua---. During these first months, 5,000 students have participated in activities linked to the program, an initiative that has generated an economic impact of 350,000 euros for this academic center. The faculty plans to expand the network of participating companies this 2025 in sectors such as quantum technology or renewable energies.
The initiative, which emerged at the end of 2023, aimed to rethink the model of relationship between university and companies to strengthen collaboration with the business fabric and the academic world, and ensure greater technological transfer. Through the program, university students detect and work on the real problems and needs of some of the collaborating companies to develop innovative solutions and projects. "The program helps us to give an outlet to the talent and innovation we generate and, at the same time, we help to boost the growth of partner companies," values the rector of the university, Daniel Crespo. The UPC is the first center in Spain to apply this model of technological transfer, based on the experience of other international centers such as the Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon.
The Connèxia program offers personalized support and makes the university's laboratories and technical services available to collaborating companies. Thus, the initiative allows partner companies direct and preferential access to the portfolio of marketable technologies and to technology-based companies that have emerged or are still in incubation in the faculty's spaces.
Through subjects such as Advanced Engineering Projects (PAE), students work in teams on innovative projects to solve real problems posed by partner companies. During this first year of activity, students have created, for example, a vision test designed to be carried out in schools, for the telecommunications company Fractus, or a predictive program for creating an energy supply portfolio that helps companies achieve their sustainability and energy management objectives, for the energy company Schneider Electric. Another result of the program is the creation of Fractus-UPC, a center that promotes disruptive energy solutions, where students are working, among other projects, on applying machine learning technologies to help Open Arms reduce fuel consumption during its navigations.