INTRABUILD Training Empowers Innovation, Sustainability, and Design Thinking in Higher Education

October 21–23, 2025 | Prishtina, Kosovo

The INTRABUILD project successfully delivered a three-day training series designed to strengthen intrapreneurship, sustainable thinking, and creative problem-solving in higher education institutions. The sessions, held from October 21–23, 2025, brought together academic and professional staff from partner institutions, offering practical tools and frameworks to drive institutional transformation and collaboration.

🚀 Day 1: Fostering Intrapreneurship & Collaborative Innovation

The training kicked off on October 21 with an insightful session led by Prof. Mag. Dr. Christian Friedl, MSc, focusing on how to drive intrapreneurship within organizations and foster cross-sector collaboration for sustainable innovation.

Key Highlights:

• Understanding the value of intrapreneurship in organizational growth
• Tools such as CEAI and the Innovation Thesis for strategic innovation planning
• Frameworks for co-innovation between corporates, startups, and academia, supported by the COrship Co-Innovation Builder

🌱 Day 2: Entrepreneurial & Sustainable Mindsets for Academics

On October 22, participants joined Mila Velkovska, MSc, PhD candidate at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, for a session exploring how academia can lead the way in entrepreneurial and sustainable transformation.

Key Takeaways:

• Fostering an entrepreneurial mindset in academia to turn research into real-world solutions
• Applying the EntreComp and GreenComp frameworks to embed sustainability and innovation
• Linking green technologies and education to drive the green transition
• Creating internal innovation models and effectively communicating new initiatives
• Understanding intellectual property rights as tools for recognition and collaboration

💡 Day 3: Design Thinking & the Intrapreneurial Mindset

The final session on October 23 was led by Lígia Franco Pasqualin, MA, MBA, from FH Joanneum University of Applied Sciences, Graz, Austria, and focused on applying Design Thinking to foster creativity, empathy, and innovation in academic and organizational settings.

Key Highlights:

• Embracing the core values of empathy, experimentation, collaboration, and iteration
• Balancing desirability, feasibility, viability, and responsibility in innovation
• Engaging in hands-on exercises to reframe problems, ideate, and prototype
• Practicing all phases of Design Thinking: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test
• Exploring how AI tools can enhance co-creation and creativity in innovation processes

The INTRABUILD consortium is grateful for the active participation and engagement from all attendees. Together, we are building a strong culture of innovation, sustainability, and intrapreneurship across academic institutions in Europe and beyond.

Let’s keep working together to inspire change and empower the next generation of innovators.

Disclaimer: Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.