Metals Consortium
The Metals Consortium is the European technology center for metals R&D at Ghent University. Their expertise ranges from fundamental material research to application-driven design of large structures. The Metals consortium aims to grow into the leading European technology center for metal research through combined efforts and expertise in material research, characterization techniques and advanced metal-oriented applications.
The challenge
The consortium wanted to bring together post-doc researchers, professors, and industry partners (approximately 50 participants), to discuss new research directions and collaborations. They wanted inspiration on what type of topics to work and tooling to come up with joint research topics.
The solution
We developed a customized 1-day workshop format including an inspirational session, templates for teamwork and facilitation of teams working on collaborative research ideas. Participants where separated in 9 pre-selected teams, always including a mix of post-docs, professors and industy partners. Each was given a specific topic to focus on (e.g., hybrid manufacturing, sustainability, behavior under deep-sea conditions, …). At the end of the day we had a poster session in which different teams presented their research ideas and received feedback.
Results
At the end of the day we had dozens of ideas, co-created by researchers and industry partners, that can drive future research of the Metals Consortium. Brining them together and working on concreate ideas ensured that we developed impactful ideas that solved real world challenges.
Why Academic Creativity Labs?
We are proud to bring something new to academia and help develop researchers’ competencies so they can have a higher societal impact and bring innovations to the world. We bring a unique blend of knowledge from business and academia.
From business we bring tooling, processes and experience working with science-driven companies & organizations.
From academia we bring a deep understanding of the academic world based on our own academic experience.