The Lisbon Summit schedule

Arrive, meet peers and settle in before the summit begins.

Opening remarks from UIIN, setting the stage for the summit and introducing the core focus: how universities can transform into more entrepreneurial, innovative and future-ready institutions.

How can university leaders move beyond incremental change and create the conditions for more entrepreneurial and innovative institutions? This leadership discussion will explore what universities must protect, what they need to redesign, and what leadership choices are required to embed entrepreneurship and innovation across the institution. The session will consider culture, incentives, governance, academic engagement and the challenge of making transformation credible beyond strategy documents and isolated initiatives.

Presentations:
1. The Studio Beyond Borders: Design Studio Pedagogy, Embodied Reflection, and Ecosystem Immersion | Daniela Marzavan – Forward College

2. A Transdisciplinary Program for Professionals: Educational Challenges and Other ‘Wicked Problems’ | Håkan Nilsson, Sofia Wiberg, Loulou Cherinet – Södertörn University / KTH / Konstfack

3. Stop Chasing Unicorns – How We Unlocked a Major Blindspot in Freelance Education | Nicola Gittins, Matthew Dowling – University of Birmingham / Freelancer Club

4. Project Partners: A Win-Win Framework for Student, Academia and Industry Engagement | Hazel Kennedy, Kate Dalton – University of Liverpool Management School

A closed, invite-only session for senior university leaders will take place alongside the main programme. This session will provide a focused space for rectors, presidents, vice-chancellors, vice-rectors and senior decision-makers to explore the leadership choices required to build more entrepreneurial and innovative universities. The discussion will focus on culture, governance, incentives, institutional legitimacy and the conditions needed to move transformation from ambition to practice.

Connect with peers over lunch and continue the conversation in an informal setting.

Presentations:
1. Solutions Builder – creating connected pathways through Exeter’s innovation ecosystem | Emily Davies, Harry Neill, Colin Dart – University of Exeter

2. From promise to progress: how SMU’s Business Innovations Generator earned the title of world’s best | Nathanael Koh, Sun Sun Lim – Singapore Management University

3. Building a university innovation system: the YEP–KAI case | Marharyta Chernyshova, Andrii Zaikin, Kseniia Semenova – YEP Accelerator / Kyiv Aviation Institute

4. Digital Entrepreneurship Center | Lena Bernhofer – IU International University of Applied Sciences

5. From Fragmentation to a University-Wide Entrepreneurship Ecosystem: The Helsinki Incubators Case | Irina Blomqvist – University of Helsinki / Helsinki Incubators

Presentations:
1. LSE Academic Consulting Hubs for Innovative Impact | Christine DuBois – London School of Economics and Political Science

2. From Climate Science to System-wide Solutions: Green Futures Solutions at the University of Exeter | Ben Dickenson Bampton, Alex Huke, Talwyn Whetter – University of Exeter

3. One University, One Front Door: Macquarie’s Research, Innovation and Enterprise Model | Katrina Avery, Dan Johnson – Macquarie University

4. One Team, Thirteen Applications: Reimagining University-Industry Engagement Through Agentic AI | Sharad Menon, Joseph Glesta – Swinburne University of Technology

5. Mitigating Single Points of Failure: The ‘ISE Champion’ Model for Industry-Academia Co-Design | Gillian Place – University of Limerick

Presentations:
1. From Faculty to Ecosystem: Reinventing Teacher Education Through Strategic Partnerships Comenius | Karol Ovesny, Ivan Siller, Katarina Horvathova-Bratova – University in Bratislava / WorkSpace Europe

2. Equinox: Coordinating a Fragmented World-Class Ecosystem to Deliver Local, National and Global Impact | Olga Kozlova, Murray Gardner – University of Oxford

3. Innovation as a Social Process: A New Model for the Future University | Jennie Shorley – Manchester Metropolitan University

4. Institutionalizing Impact: Cultural Transformation Concerning Research Translation at Oregon State University | Jana Bouwma-Gearhart, Rich G. Carter – Oregon State University

5. Eight years of embedding entrepreneurial culture university-wide: the UNIHUB case (2017–2025) | Camelia Cojocaru – University of Bucharest / UNIHUB

This interactive, UIIN-led workshop invites participants to challenge the assumptions, structures and behaviours that hold universities back. Through guided activities, participants will examine where current university models limit entrepreneurial and innovative transformation, identify what needs to be questioned or redesigned, and explore how institutions can move beyond fragmented initiatives towards deeper cultural and organisational change.

Presentations:
1. Beyond Digital: Creating Lasting Impact with UPT Digital Transformation Journey | Diana Andone, Radu Vasiu – Politehnica University of Timisoara

2. InoHub: From Curious Student to Startup Founder | Vlad Mihaescu, Silviu Vert, Valentin Nita – Politehnica University Timisoara

3. USTPs “7steps to StartUp Support” | Gabriele Permoser – University of Applied Sciences St. Pölten

4. Building a Regional Innovation Ecosystem through University–Regional Government Collaboration | Santa Vītola, Iveta Putniņa – Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences

Presentations:
1. Road to Entrepreneurial University: A Case from Namibia | Valerie Garises – Namibia University of Science and Technology

2. From Job Seekers to Job Creators: Embedding an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Across | Ramakrishnan Raman, Vidya Yeravdekar, Anupama Kotur – Symbiosis University Symbiosis International (Deemed University)

3. Designing the HOGENT Center for Entrepreneurship as a Catalyst for an Entrepreneurial University | Bart Derre, Koen Goethals, Marc D’havé – HOGENT University of Applied Sciences and Arts

4. Powered by O’Pake™: Building Talent, Advancing Innovation, Strengthening Communities | Cammie Harris, Rodney Ridley, Caitlin Long – Alvernia University

This interactive, UIIN-led workshop moves from critique to construction. Building on the provocations, cases and policy discussions from the summit, participants will explore what an entrepreneurial and innovative university should be designed to do, enable and reward. Through guided activities, they will identify practical building blocks for future-ready institutions, including culture, leadership, education, research, support structures, partnerships and incentives.

Presentations:
1. UL@Work: Bringing the Workplace into UL, and UL into the Workplace | Sinéad Burke, Geraldine Carroll – University of Limerick

2. Adding the ‘S – Social’: How Shaw STEAMS for Good Builds Hong Kong’s Future Tech Talent Pipeline | Candy Yuen, Sam Lam – The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU)

3. From Projects to Purpose: Institutionalising Entrepreneurial Learning Across an Entire University | Derek Chiang, Kevin Koh – Singapore Management University

4. LiU InDefense – Defense Innovation through Challenge-Based Education | Ingela Lindahl, Charlotte Norrman – Linköpings universitet

Connect with peers over lunch and continue the conversation in an informal setting.

What policy, funding and system conditions are needed to help universities become more entrepreneurial and innovative? This session will begin with a focused policy panel exploring the conditions that enable or constrain institutional transformation. Participants will then move into facilitated roundtable discussions to reflect on what needs to change at policy, funding, governance and institutional levels to support universities in becoming more innovative and entrepreneurial.

Presentations:

1. Rapid Spinout: Diversifying Commercialisation at the University of Edinburgh | Sarah Turnbull, Lizzie Withington – Edinburgh Innovations / University of Edinburgh

2. PERIscope Commercialisation Award | Jason Okey, Jane Cockburn – Sydney Knowledge Hub, University of Sydney

3. Innovation Produced – A Mindset and Model to Convert Research Knowledge to Value | Anthony Francis – University of Texas San Antonio

4. The Lehigh University Research Translation AcceLUrator: Connecting Research to Societal Impact | John Coulter, Lee Kern, Henry Odi, Himanshu Jain, Dominic Packer – Lehigh University