IPN - Instituto Pedro Nunes

IPN     IPN Incubadora

Innovation and Entrepreneurship Projects

VCI has wide experience in this area, having already coordinated and participated in several European projects (e.g. H2020, Interreg) and national projects among others. For more information, consult our projects area.

 

Intellectual property and protection of intangible assets

VCI works on Intellectual Property and protection of intangible assets, focuses its offer in the areas of training, strategy and consultancy.

In the field of training, we have different teaching modules, focusing on the key aspects of intellectual property rights and the protection of intangible assets.

On strategy, VCI provides support in structuring internal organization plans for managing he process of creating, valuing and protecting intangible assets.

VCI also provides consultancy services to support applications for registration of Intellectual Property rights, namely assessing protection feasibility.

More
 

Acceleration and open innovation programs

Business ideas acceleration programs
Design and execution of acceleration programs, which include the entire value chain, from ideas generation to pitch, business model (Lean Startup) and prototyping (Lean Prototyping).

Open innovation programs
Fostering collaborative innovation processes between large companies, startups and research centers, taking advantage of our unique innovation ecosystem, with more than 300 companies, the network of around 3000 researchers at the University of Coimbra and our national and international partnerships. From one-day workshops to Hackathons and long-term programs (3 to 6 months).

Boosting innovation and local development ecosystems
Based on our experience of more than 20 years in supporting entrepreneurs and boosting the innovation ecosystem of Coimbra, recognized nationally and internationally, we support organizations such as municipalities, incubators and other local development organizations to boost their innovation ecosystems, from the strategic planning up local teams training.

 

Business Innovation Service

Activities to foster an organization's internal innovation processes:

Innovation workshops:
Introduction to the basic concepts of product and service innovation, organizational innovation, innovation funding and other ways to increase the company's competitiveness.

Workshops for creating new products and services:
Support in the development of new products and services, from the ideation phase to the creation of an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and presentation to potential interested parties. It can include support in the creation of functional prototypes, either digital, or through hardware tools and, such as 3D printing and electronic instrumentation. It can also be used by a company to redefine its current line of products and services, using a competitive comparative analysis as a starting point.

Innovation and strategic reflection workshops
Support in definition and realignment of the company's strategy in the face of current and future social and technological trends. It includes the identification of new business areas resulting from market opportunities and the adoption of new technologies, as well as an analysis of the possibilities for innovation cooperation and funding.

Examples of areas and markets to address:

  • Agri-food
  • Blockchain
  • Circular Economy
  • Space & Earth Observation
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Collaborative robotics
  • Silver Economy and active aging