PhD Innovation Café 2024

Always wanted to pitch your research to relevant companies? Would you like to receive valuable feedback from the corporate world or engage in collaborations? Then pour your knowledge into the business world and apply for the PhD Innovation Café!

What?

The Ghent University PhD Community, Voka Oost-Vlaanderen, DO! and Doctoral Schools host the sixth edition of the Innovation Café. We organize knowledge exchange between young researchers and companies.  
This networking event will initiate new perspectives and aims to bridge the gap between academia and society. We provide a unique opportunity to introduce you to a variety of companies interested in your research.  

The Innovation Café offers… 

  • Knowledge exchange between researchers and companies 
  • Networking with entrepreneurs and organizations, with a potential for future recruitment 
  • Introducing innovation to interested companies 
  • Being up to date with high-quality innovative research from other fields 
  • Developing cooperation with companies: receiving data for analysis, conducting research, collaborating on R&D, …  
  • Entrepreneurial opportunities and coaching 
  • Meeting and debating, providing ideas for (future) research 

You will get the unique chance to network with representatives from over 25 companies. Over the past years, we welcomed Advisory Services, ITronic, Codevid, IRC Engineering, Milmax, BPI Formipac, Decathlon, Mint Europe, Farmad, Yara International, Partners voor Ondernemers, MindCapture, and many more.  

For whom?

Any (post)doctoral researcher at Ghent University, from any year or faculty who:  

  • wants to pitch their innovative research to a crowd of interested companies 
  • wants to gain valuable feedback and new industry insights on their research  
  • wants to network with entrepreneurs and organizations related to their field   

We happily welcome pitches from any faculty or research field, with an important focus on innovation. 

Application process

The first selection of applications to pitch is done by a preliminary jury. Selected researchers will get a one-day training to help deliver a more powerful presentation. This pitch training will earn you 1 Transferable Skill Seminar in the cluster Career Management from the Doctoral Schools.

After this training, a second selection will be done to select the researchers who will present their pitch during the Innovation Café.

Program

The timing of this program is as follows:  

  • Application deadline: February 23 
  • Pitch training: February 28, full day at VOKA (Lammerstraat 18) from 9am till 5pm 
  • Selection day: March 26, slot during the day at DO! (Jozef Kluyskensstraat 31) 
  • PhD Innovation Café: May 23, 4 pm – 8 pm (location to be announced) 

Save these dates and apply now!  

Do not miss this unique opportunity and register here:  https://event.ugent.be/registration/innovationcafe2024


All sessions need to be attended to receive the Doctoral Schools credit and to participate in the final event.