The ATTRACT Academy is revolutionising how students engage with deep-tech innovation and entrepreneurship. Born from the success of the ‘Young Innovators and Entrepreneurs’ pilot in ATTRACT phase 1, it scaled up its impact during phase 2, expanding its reach to multiple universities across Europe. As a result of these two phases, it has empowered over 1,300 students to explore cutting-edge technologies to solve some of the biggest societal challenges we face, while also cultivating a new generation of researchers who, through their interactions with students, naturally embrace co-innovation between academia, research infrastructures, and commercial organisations.
The ATTRACT project was launched in 2018 to fund breakthrough detection and imaging technologies with societal and industrial applications, and phase 2 focused on translating proofs-of-concept into tangible applications and fostering collaboration between projects. This phase expanded the collaboration between researchers with students who were provided with methodologies, mentoring, and hands-on experience, enabling them to develop novel technological solutions to address societal challenges.
One of the Academy’s primary objectives was to expand student and institutional participation. In phase 1, around 100 students participated, but the current participation increased by 1,200%, engaging students from over 70 disciplines and 17 institutions represented across the 10 Student Programs. Participants were supported by a teaching team of over 100 professionals, successfully completing 149 projects. In addition, the interdisciplinary approach allowed students to gain insights into the complexities of bringing technological innovations to the market. At the same time, researchers benefited from fresh perspectives on their technologies’ potential applications in previously unexplored domains.
Transforming education through experiential learning
Unlike traditional classroom-based training, the Academy focuses on experiential learning by utilising methodologies such as design thinking and problem-based learning. Students work in multidisciplinary teams alongside researchers to explore applications for the technologies being developed in the ATTRACT umbrella. This hands-on approach encouraged critical thinking, adaptability, and creativity, which are crucial skills in today’s competitive global market.
To further enhance its approach, the Academy gathered qualitative data through interactive workshops with educators involved in the different Student Programs. The discussions revealed key insights such as increased knowledge sharing among faculty within the ATTRACT ecosystem, an enhanced research focus that helped students critically evaluate their ideas, and iterative improvements in teaching strategies that led to higher-quality student projects over time.
However, challenges also emerged, including some student teams struggling to understand the complexity of the technologies, the difficulty of balancing guidance with fostering independent thinking, and the occasional technical issues of advanced technologies that impacted the learning process.
“The complex challenges facing our world demand more than rote memorisation; they require a generation equipped with ingenuity. By embracing innovative ideas, nurturing creative thinking, and engaging deeply with process-based learning, today’s students develop the critical skills and adaptable mindsets necessary to not only understand these challenges but to actively design and implement meaningful solutions for a brighter future,
commented Vikki Eriksson, Head of Research, Aalto Design Factory.
The Academy also encouraged cross-functional collaboration, resulting in engineers acting as translators for complex technologies to designers and business students, teams leveraging diverse expertise to generate innovative solutions, and improved resilience and adaptability as students navigated unfamiliar disciplines. Despite these achievements, some teams tended to work “in silos”, limiting cross-pollination of ideas. To overcome this, educators suggested designing activities that explicitly encourage skill-sharing and interdisciplinary communication.
The evolution of the program from its first round to the second demonstrated the value of iterative refinement. Early challenges, such as limitations in technology developers’ ability to effectively engage with students, were addressed in subsequent rounds by fostering more structured and focused interactions. Narrowing the scope of applications and strengthening these relationships allowed students to dive deeper into their projects, resulting in higher-quality outcomes.
By fusing cutting-edge technology with immersive, multidisciplinary projects, the ATTRACT Academy is transforming European education. It empowers students to work alongside researchers and industry experts, developing real-world solutions to complex societal challenges. This approach not only enhances learning outcomes but also strengthens the links between academia, research, and innovation, paving the way for European technological leadership.
“The ATTRACT Academy exemplifies how policy-driven investment in education and research can catalyse resilient innovation ecosystems. It creates the conditions for long-term transformation by embedding deep-tech capabilities within a new generation at the interface of science, design, and enterprise, which is essential for Europe’s transition to a sustainable and globally competitive knowledge economy,
stated Shreyasi Kar, Head of Operations of Aalto Design Factory and member of the ATTRACT Project Consortium Board.
This report, made by Aalto Design Factory, the coordinator of the ATTRACT Academy, provides deeper insights by drawing from qualitative data collected through an interactive workshop with the teachers involved in the Academy. Additionally, it includes data from the ATTRACT Students Survey, where 430 students shared their feedback and experiences.
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The ATTRACT Academy is revolutionising how students engage with deep-tech innovation and entrepreneurship. Born from the success of the ‘Young Innovators and Entrepreneurs’ pilot in ATTRACT phase 1, it scaled up its impact during phase 2, expanding its reach to multiple universities across Europe. As a result of these two phases, it has empowered over […]
