The first edition of this student innovation competition, driven by StartUB! as part of the University of Barcelona’s 575th anniversary, brought together nine teams, eight mentors and a jury at the Vestibule of the Historic Building on 21 May. The Faculty of Nursing took home the first prize of €1,000.
The University of Barcelona hosted the Àgora UB 2026 Final, a student innovation competition organised by StartUB!, the UB’s entrepreneurship and innovation unit. The event took place at the Vestibule of the Historic Building as part of the celebrations marking the institution’s 575th anniversary.
Under the question “How should the university of the future look?”, nine student teams from six faculties pitched their proposals to the jury in three-minute presentations, with no visual or technological support. The Faculty of Nursing won with “Districtes UB”, a belonging system that assigns each student to one of four districts with their own identity, aimed at tackling social disconnection on campus and building real bonds between students from different faculties. The team took home a prize of €1,000.
Among the proposals presented, initiatives related to sustainability, healthy eating in university spaces and sustainable climate control in classrooms also stood out, reflecting the diversity of perspectives students have on the real challenges facing the UB.
A special edition marking the 575th anniversary
StartUB! organises a student innovation day twice a year in iDay format: a space where student teams work to solve real challenges in their university environment. To mark the University of Barcelona’s 575th anniversary, the Vice-Rectorate for Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Transfer decided to dedicate a special edition of this format to the institution itself, setting as its central challenge a question that invited the entire student body to take part: how should the university of the future look? That is how Àgora UB 2026 came to be.
Five weeks of work: from problem to proposal
Before taking the stage, the teams spent five weeks building their projects using StartUB!’s Innovation Toolkit. The process began by identifying a real problem within the university and the users affected by it. From there, each team generated and filtered ideas based on their viability and innovative potential, setting aside obvious solutions in favour of those with a genuine differentiating factor.
The third phase was perhaps the most demanding: teams left the classroom to validate their proposals with real users, conduct interviews, test hypotheses and demonstrate that their ideas were sustainable beyond the page. All of this work was documented on the virtual campus and formed the basis for the final phase, in which each team condensed weeks of research into a three-minute speech.
Throughout the process, teams were supported by a mentor from their own faculty who acted as a critical and strategic guide at every stage. On the day of the Final, after receiving express mentoring sessions to sharpen their narrative, they presented their proposals with no visual or technological support: just the speech, the time, and the idea.
The Final: training, strategy and pitches
On May 21st, the event was structured in two blocks. In the first, from 16:00, teams took part in a gamified training session in the garden of the Historic Building: one-minute pitch duels, a search for express mentoring tickets and dynamics to accumulate points on a real-time scoreboard visible to all attendees. The three highest-ranked teams gained access to the Cornucopia, Àgora UB’s strategic armoury, where they could choose an advantage to use during the pitches.
At 17:30, the pitches got underway in the Vestibule. The nine teams took to the stage to defend their proposals in exactly three minutes, with time strictly kept. The jury put questions to each team at the end of their presentation.
The finalist teams
Nine teams from seven faculties competed at the Àgora UB 2026 Final:
— Campus de l’Alimentació — Oriol Comas (mentor) — Xiangna Ji, Lucía Campos, Erika Wong
— Economics and Business — Claudio Cruz (mentor) — Monika Kasprzycka, Luis Gustavo Martínez, Juan Martín Villada
— Nursing ★ Winning team — Dolors Rodríguez (mentor) — Andrea Moya, Agustí Dacosta, Verónica Rojas
— Mathematics and Computer Science — Laura Sáez (mentor) — Mar Vilardell, Mariam Drissi, Karim Boujana, Guillem Tubert
— Mathematics and Computer Science — Laura Sáez (mentor) — Ricard Civil, Alejandro Casas
— Psychology — David Gallardo (mentor) — Jan Díaz, Alba Rufo, Giovanna Marina Riso, Àlex Pellicer
— FIMA — Núria Ferran (mentor) — Anaïs García, Leyre Benito, Marina Sizai Durán, Mireia Mayol
— Chemistry — Camila Barreneche (mentor) — Jordi Callizo, Marc Puit, Erik González, Marc Villarroya
— Chemistry — Camila Barreneche (mentor) — Agustín Capellades, Àlex Ruiz, David Matamala, Akram Khan
The jury and authorities present
The Final jury was made up of:
Xavier Testar Ymbert: Deputy for Innovation and Transfer, Vice-Rectorate for Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Transfer (UB).
Àngels Ibáñez Andújar: Head of the Student Services Office (UB).
Hug Sala: Secretary of the UB Student Council.
The event was also attended by the deans of the participating faculties:
— Maria Teresa Lluch Canut — Dean, Faculty of Nursing — Miquel Térmens Graells — Dean, Faculty of Information and Audiovisual Media (FIMA) — Núria Fagella i Rabionet — Dean, Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science — Àlex Tarancón Sanz — Vice-Dean, Faculty of Chemistry
About Àgora UB and StartUB!
StartUB! is the entrepreneurship and innovation unit of the University of Barcelona. It organises a student innovation day twice a year in iDay format, where student teams work to solve real challenges in their university environment. To mark the UB’s 575th anniversary, the Vice-Rectorate for Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Transfer launched a special edition of this format — named Àgora UB — setting as its challenge the question that defines this anniversary: how should the university of the future look?
This activity is part of an initiative co-funded by the European Union under the ERDF Programme for Catalonia 2021–2027, with the aim of strengthening the entrepreneurial ecosystem and knowledge transfer.