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The KiiCS project about science, technology and art, comes to an end

May 6, 2015 | Comunicación científica

neurona+pentagramaThe European project KiiCS (Knowledge Incubation in Innovation and Creation for Science), a three-year old initiative that has involved 18 institutions and has organized activities in which more than 1500 people have participated all over Europe, has come to an end.

The last newsletter of the project, elaborated by the agency KEA European Affairs, gathers the results and recommendations extracted from the three years of KiiCS. The project has favoured the connection between science, technology and art through innovation incubators: collaborative activities to promote interdisciplinariety as a way to understand the creative process.

Around Europe, synergies between science, technology and art generated by the 18 partners (9 main ones and 9 third parties) have originated 24 innovative ideas. Furthermore, new collaborative spaces of team work have been developed, as well as new connections between institutions at a local level and more citizen participation and communication.

The project’s legacy is the KiiCS guide on how to develop innovative incubators, published in seven different languages. The evaluation of the project, conducted by Matt Station, has been very positive. It emphasises the connections achieved and the good task regarding awareness raising on the possibilities of bringing together science, technology and art.

These are the three main recommendations from the project:

  1. Inspire a cross-sectoral culture of innovation
  2. Make arts & science relevant to the local community of citizens, businesses, professionals and policy makers
  3. Enable ideas generation AND development

From Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) several activities have been organized in the framework of the project, such as the Neuro-Music Hack Day, the workshops “Sounds, science and technology” and the Phonos grant. In all the cases, the events have been possible thanks to the collaboration among different university groups. Vital for the project have been the Music Technology Group (MTG-UPF), the Phonos Foundation, Sons de Barcelona or SPECS. Collaborations with other actors of the city have also been initiated through the constitution of a Local Consortium in January 2013. Members of the Consortium have been: Barcelona Activa, Centre d’Arts Santa Mònica, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB), Consell Nacional de la Cultura i les Arts (CoNCA), Fundació Catalana per la Recerca i la Innovació (FCRi), Fundació Obra Social “la Caixa”, Institut de Cultura de Barcelona (ICUB) and Institut Municipal d’Educació de Barcelona (IMEB). The companies Starlab and Formas Naturales also played an important role along the project.

Besides the main activities organized, the KiiCS project and its local actions have also been presented in several events in Barcelona, such as the Science Festival or the national competition “Ciencia en Acción” held in CosmoCaixa.

The KiiCS project has been coordinated from Barcelona by Gema Revuelta, who has counted on the support from Anna Calderer, Marta Palomo and Núria Saladié during its different stages.

The KiiCS website will be accessible until March 2016. From that moment, all contents will be moved to the Ecsite website.

Interesting links:



Este blog cuenta con la colaboración de la Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología – Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación