COCOON – Second consortium meeting at Aalto U. Helsinki

COCOON – co-creating greener futures, a research project funded by the EU and led by COFAC / ISMAT, held its 2nd meeting and an open Workshop at Aalto University, in Helsinki.

The second meeting of the European consortium led by COFAC / TRIE / ISMAT took place from 10 to 14 September at Aalto University in Helsinki. The TRIE researchers Américo Mateus, Gabriel Patrocínio and Susana Leonor participated.
It was a fantastic meeting, with great learning environment, where researchers from Cofac, FabLab Reykjavik, the Faculty of Sciences of the U.Porto, the IAAC of Barcelona and Aalto University, worked on the next deliverables of the project: Mapping of good practices and methods of Biodesign and visited all the Aalto University Laboratories associated with Biodesign (CHEMARTS and BIOFILIA), the Makers Spaces (Aalto FABLAB and Aalto Studios) as well as all the Workshops supporting Students of Aalto’s creative courses (Design, Fashion, Architecture, Arts, Photography, Cinema, among others).

On the 12th, a workshop was held open to the Aalto community, attended by several local stakeholders: Ministry of Economy and Employment; Businesspeople, Entrepreneurs, Researchers, Teachers and Students. After an introduction to the COCOON Project participants by Project Coordinator Professor Doutor Américo Mateus, we had 3 fabulous speakers: EU Project Officer Gregoire Douxchamps EACEA; Petra Tarjanne – Finnish Ministry of Economy; Pirjo Kääriäinen – Director of Aalto CHEMARTS and Professor Carla Paoliello of ISMAT (online). The workshop ended with a group dynamic, led by COCOON’s team, where we sought to gather more information about the transitions from: Design Policies to Biodesign Policies; Manufacturing for Biomanufacturing and Design Education for Biodesign Education.

Our motivation with this project is increasingly high, as the level of learning and the perspectives of contribution that COCOON will have to Biodesign are increasing.

Américo Mateus
COCOON Coordinator