This year’s Innovation Days of the University of Pécs took place on 10-11 May 2023. The main goal of the event was to introduce the university’s innovation activities and good practices, and to attract new organizational and corporate partners.

On the first day of the event, the main topics were the university’s operating model, strategy, competitiveness and the possibilities for the commercialisation of scientific results.

The second day focused on financing university innovation activities and the opportunities for joint projects with businesses.

This day also included a round table discussion in which participants explored, from the perspective of university(s) and clusters, the opportunities for facilitating innovation activities between university and cluster ecosystems and the steps that could be taken to address the barriers to collaboration.

The participants of the discussion were Dr. Ferenc Jakab, vice-rector of the University of Pécs, Gergely Kincs, innovation manager of PTE Innocapital Ltd., Margit Weisz, manager of the iFood Cluster and member of the board of the Hungarian Cluster Association, and Zsolt Teleki, manager of the Mirbest Cluster and member of the board of the Hungarian Cluster Association.

The main findings of the participants clearly point in the direction of a much closer cooperation between universities and enterprises, which can be facilitated and mediated by domestic clusters and managed by project companies capable of managing intellectual property rights.