The University has received competitive funding from the European Commission to take part in the project “Empowering Sustainability Through Green Additive Manufacturing Education (Edu-GArD3n)”, an Erasmus+ initiative with a total budget of €400,000, of which €70,500 has been allocated to the Bioengineering Institute of Technology (BIT).

Coordinated by Brno University of Technology (Czech Republic), the project will run from 2025 to 2028 and bring together multiple European institutions with a view to promoting more sustainable additive manufacturing through higher education, technology transfer and cooperation. Over 36 months, the project will develop innovative educational materials, create an AI-based virtual classroom, publish an open-access book and produce specialised audiovisual content. It will also promote student mobility, training in knowledge transfer and new avenues for cooperation between the fields of engineering and biomedicine.

According to the project’s principal investigator in Spain, Román Pérez, this initiative “will allow us to move towards more responsible and sustainable 3D printing manufacturing, by integrating cutting-edge educational tools and fostering strong European partnerships. For UIC Barcelona, it represents a fantastic opportunity to continue to generate impact in strategic areas such as engineering, health and sustainability.”

The UIC Barcelona Bioengineering Institute of Technology was created in 2017 with the aim of developing materials and systems that stimulate the regeneration of damaged tissues. Led by Dr Román Pérez, the institute is comprised of a multidisciplinary team of researchers whose work focuses on research lines related to the design and development of biomaterials for the regeneration and functional repair of tissues and organs, both in basic research and in technology transfer to industry companies