Home – English

Evolving from Lab to Ecosystem

In a world where knowledge evolves rapidly and global challenges are increasingly complex, technology alone is no longer enough. What is needed is an integrated vision that considers economic, environmental, and social impacts. 

The Contamination Lab Pisa champions a new entrepreneurial culture that sees sustainability as a key element in value creation. We adopt innovative approaches such as the Sustainable Business Model Canvas, which broadens the scope of a business by incorporating responsibility and impact. 

In this context, students, PhD candidates, and researchers become active protagonists, bringing skills and vision, and are ready to collaborate with institutions and businesses to build a shared future. 

Thanks to the Quadruple Helix Innovation model, we promote a multilateral and multidisciplinary network, where universities, industry, public administration, and civil society work synergistically to develop high-value projects.   

An Opportunity for Growth and Innovation 

Discover how the Contamination Lab offers unique opportunities to develop key skills in an era of ecological and digital transformation. Through a rich calendar of activities, you will acquire essential transversal skills to become an Innopreneur—an innovator capable of generating value through sustainable, digital, and socially responsible solutions. 

Or else, if your goal is to make a difference in the innovation field, you can explore the role of the Innovation Broker—a key figure able to connect individuals, organizations, and resources to accelerate the shaping of new ideas, technologies, and groundbreaking practices. 

Join us and become a key player in building an innovative future! 

KNOWLEDGE INTEGRATION IN INNOVATION

The Contamination Lab organizes activities such as Seminars and Deep Dives, Hackathons, Bootcamps, and Speed Challenges. The goal is to address topics such as social innovation and responsible entrepreneurship through a Design and System Thinking approach and a participatory design. With a theoretical and practical approach, offered both in-person and online, this initiative promotes growth and development opportunities for professionals capable of generating economic, environmental, and social value for organizations, networks, and territories. 

Start up and Multidisciplinarity: a roadmap.

This course, part of the University of Pisa’s cross-disciplinary offerings, is designed to bring students from any academic background closer to the challenges of building innovative startups. You will explore the tools needed to face these challenges while making the most of each participant’s unique disciplinary expertise. A unique opportunity to integrate diverse perspectives and skills into the innovation process. 

Co-create I-Lab: The Innovation Pathway for the Future – Training to Become an Innopreneur and Innovation Broker.

An intensive 33-hour course focused on key topics such as Design and System Thinking, Social Innovation, Market Analysis and Validation, Pitching, and Participatory Design. This program offers both theoretical and practical approaches to explore roles like the Innopreneur and the Innovation Broker, helping participants build essential skills to innovate in a sustainable and responsible way. The I-Lab seminars also include the use of the Triple Layered Business Model Canvas (TLBMC), which expands the traditional Business Model Canvas (BMC) by adding two critical dimensions: an environmental layer, which examines the product lifecycle, and a social layer, which considers stakeholder engagement. 

This comprehensive approach enables the creation of economic, environmental, and social value—essential for a complete innovation analysis. 

CoCreate2Innovate 

In collaboration with the Start For Future Alliance, a European initiative coordinated by the University of Pisa to accelerate solutions to real-world challenges through strategic collaborations, three workshops have been organized to support research teams and/or established startups that have a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) with a TRL above 3 (i.e., a prototype or an initial version demonstrating the core concept of the product), regardless of sector or disciplinary field. 

The goal is to provide practical tools for market analysis and co-creation with potential customers through exercises on business modeling and buyer personas (representations of ideal customers), in order to strategically refine business models. 

The workshops, each lasting approximately two hours, will be held on the following dates: 

• First session – June 4, Aula Mariani, Polo Le Benedettine, 3:00 PM: INTRODUCTION 

• Second session – June 11, Aula Mariani, Polo Le Benedettine, 3:00 PM: CO-CREATION WORKSHOP and peer reflection among the participating startups 

• Third session – July 8: Matching & Networking Event with potential customers. This final event will be a structured opportunity to present your business projects, engage with the market, and create synergies with companies interested in your innovations. 

Deep Dives

Focus on specific economic sectors, through vertical deep dives, also proposed by individual Departments or Ecosystem players. These can be structured as speed challenges (competitions for business ideas or territorial projects that take place within a short timeframe) or as opportunities for discussion and co-creation with the local area.

POP-UP project

A format that hosts researchers who share academic research results with Clabbers (Contamination Lab participants) and key stakeholders through participatory approaches such as World Cafes, Open Space Technology, and the co-creation of Living Labs/Workshops.

Bright Women: Shining in Innovation 

The Contamination Lab of the University of Pisa organized the event “Bright Women: Shining in Innovation” on September 27, 2024, as part of the European Researchers’ Night (BRIGHT-NIGHT), which took place at the Aula Magna Nuova of Palazzo La Sapienza in Pisa, from 10:00 AM to 1:30 PM. 

The event aimed to highlight success stories and promote female empowerment in the entrepreneurial world, featuring contributions from representatives of the international academic and business communities. Discussions focused on the challenges and opportunities for women in the fields of innovation and technology. 

Roadshow “Women, Innovation, and Networks for Inclusive Leadership” and WIN Challenge: A Competition of Ideas for Innovation and Inclusion 

A full-day event organized with the goal of strengthening inclusion initiatives and support for women in academic, entrepreneurial, and local contexts, while promoting a culture based on gender equality and sustainable innovation. 

As part of this day, the Contamination Lab Pisa, in collaboration with Netval and Invitalia, launched the WIN Challenge: Women, Innovation for Inclusive Solutions during the Roadshow “Women, Innovation, and Networks for Inclusive Leadership”. The challenge consisted of four competitions, each targeting different audiences but united by a common goal: to highlight and support projects and businesses that embrace inclusion and sustainability as defining elements of their identity. 

Speed Challenge: Design, Food, Agriculture – More Connected Than We Imagine? Creative Synergies to Cultivate the Future 

A two-day event aimed at exploring the interrelationship between the agri-food sector, design, and collaborative and participatory approaches, with the goal of creating new sustainable models through transdisciplinary collaboration. 

L’Aia in Festa

“L’Aia in Festa”, an event celebrating Tuscan food and wine excellence in a convivial and authentic setting, sees the Contamination Lab of the University of Pisa proposing a co-creation experience that actively engages with the local territory. 

The initiative aims to form an interdisciplinary group of up to 12 participants, including scholars and I-Lab students, with the goal of conducting collaborative research on innovative ideas that foster synergies between the 26 local artisans featured in the event and the attending public. 

The project is part of the Contamination Lab’s broader mission to open up to the local community, enhancing the encounter between academic knowledge and artisanal practices to generate shared and sustainable solutions. 

“60′ with…” MEETINGS

The “60′ with…” format, promoted by the Contamination Lab of the University of Pisa in collaboration with the Polo Tecnologico di Navacchio, is a series of meetings focused on innovation and entrepreneurship. These events offer students, researchers, and professionals the opportunity to engage directly with leading figures from the startup and technology sectors. 

• March 6, 2025: The first session hosted Fabrizio Capobianco, a serial entrepreneur with a successful career in Silicon Valley. Capobianco presented The Liquid Factory, an innovative model for building fully remote startups with no physical offices, each receiving an initial investment of €200,000. The session provided participants with a practical vision of how to launch flexible and scalable digital businesses. 

• May 14, 2025: The second meeting featured Giorgio Ciron, Director of InnovUp – Italian Innovation & Startup Ecosystem, who shared his experience in developing policy to support the growth of Italy’s tech sector.

• June 11, 2025: The third session welcomed Luna Bianchi, Co-founder and Co-CEO of Immanence. A jurist and activist in the field of digital human rights, Bianchi is a member of the World Economic Forum Working Group on Metaverse Governance.

The Contamination Lab Pisa continues to stand out as a dynamic hub for interaction between the academic world and the innovation ecosystem. Through the “60′ con…” format, CLab fosters engagement between students, professionals, and industry experts, promoting the cross-pollination of ideas and the co-creation of innovative solutions.

Sustainable Wine Intensive Week Sovignano 

The Sustainable Wine Intensive Week is an intensive program for master’s students from Circle U. partner universities. This week-long experience brings together students from different countries to tackle real-world challenges posed by local stakeholders in Tuscany’s wine and agribusiness sectors. 

The programme, with contents both in Italian and English, is structured in two phases: 

• Online Phase – Introductory seminars will provide students with key insights into the local wine industry and its challenges, laying the groundwork for practical activities. 

• In-Person Phase – Participants will then spend a week in Tuscany, engaging in field visits to wineries, agritourism enterprises, and rural projects, applying their knowledge to real-world contexts. 

Students will be divided into international teams to work on specific challenges provided by local companies. These challenges will focus on current issues in the wine industry, encouraging teams to collaborate and propose innovative solutions.