The Una Europa Student Project Incubator (SPI) is aimed at all students from Una Europa partner universities who want to improve their project-development and problem-solving skills. It offers a unique opportunity to network and collaborate with other students from all across Europe while creating and working on projects that address real-life chemistry-related challenges.

Sustainability and Green Chemistry are currently experiencing a period of reevaluation. In public and political discourse, a certain “vibe shift” can be observed, where priorities appear to be changing, and the urgency of sustainability is, at times, questioned or reframed. At the same time, global challenges such as climate change, resource scarcity, and environmental degradation remain pressing and unresolved.

The program may include online preparatory sessions ahead of the on-site phase in Berlin. During the on-site meetings, students will develop their ideas during three 90-minute workshop sessions. Teams will be supported throughout the process by mentors and will participate in guided sessions on ideation methods and tools, such as the Business Model Canvas, enabling them to structure their ideas and explore pathways towards implementation. The Hackathon will conclude with a final pitch session, where teams present their results to an international conference audience.

This edition of the Student Project Incubator is designed as a hackathon, bringing together students from diverse academic backgrounds to collaboratively address a sustainability challenge at the intersection of chemistry, society, and the economy.

The Una Europa staff will be sharing additional details about the workshop in the near future.

This workshop is organized by:

Dr. Svenja Herziger works in science management at Freie Universität Berlin. She studied Chemistry at Freie Universität where she also got her doctorate. She currently works in the transfer initiative greenChem which aims at connecting science and economy to strengthen green chemistry in the Berlin-Brandenburg area.

Kirsten Schmiester is part of FUB’s Una Europa Team where she works as Senior Project Lead, leading the Work Package “Una Europa for Society” and overseeing all outreach formats. Before that, she worked at the university’s Welcome Service, supporting new international staff members as they join Freie Universität Berlin.

Moritz Zöllner is project coordinator sustainability in the University Network UNA Europa at Freie Universität Berlin.

*To participate in this workshop, please register via our conference registration platform.