Six social innovation projects honoured at the fifth edition of the Eines Awards
Six social innovation projects were honoured yesterday at the fifth edition of the Eines Awards, an initiative of the Centre for Research in Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation (CREIS-UAB), which has established itself as a benchmark in the promotion of social entrepreneurship in Catalonia. The UAB, the regional councils of Vallès Occidental and Vallès Oriental, the Barcelona Provincial Council and the town councils of Cerdanyola del Vallès, Mollet del Vallès and Montornès del Vallès are collaborating in this initiative. The rector of the UAB, Javier Lafuente, said he was ‘very satisfied’ with the territorial impact achieved by CREIS-UAB and the Eines awards.
The winning local projects were Índigo, an accessible technological tool that allows educational materials to be personalised for students with special needs; Refugi, an initiative that promotes therapeutic spaces for young people with mental health problems through artistic interventions in nature; and Teixim Vincles, which develops a comprehensive strategy for sex education in schools, with training for teachers and educational continuity. These projects are being developed in Cerdanyola, Mollet and Montornès del Vallès, respectively, and all three have received a grant of €2,500.
The regional awards went to La Crida Edison, a project in Vallès Oriental that promotes local cinema as a space for training, cultural participation and youth development in the audiovisual field; and BoscEscola, a project in Vallès Occidental that transforms the educational model for children through outdoor classrooms in natural environments, encouraging experiential learning. The Catalan project that won the award was Etika Bikes, which promotes the local and sustainable production of bamboo bicycles, linking urban mobility, innovation and responsible tourism. The three projects received €4,000 each.
In his speech, the rector recalled that this awards ceremony, held for the first time in Cerdanyola del Vallès, is part of the UAB's Innovation Week. Lafuente thanked CREIS for its work in promoting and organising these awards and highlighted the UAB's collaboration with public administrations in promoting social innovation: he said that the university wants to be a ‘driving force for change’ in the region and, in this regard, ‘local councils are our main allies in bringing the university closer to the public’.
Other speakers included the mayor of Cerdanyola del Vallès, Carlos Cordón, who expressed his satisfaction at hosting this ceremony for the first time and at the synergies between the municipality and the UAB; Raúl Moreno, Secretary General for Social Rights and Inclusion of the Generalitat, who praised the role of innovation in achieving ‘effective policies that reach citizens’; and Xavier Garcés, President of the Vallès Occidental Regional Council, who highlighted that this project is an example of ‘the public sector working together to implement projects that benefit citizens’.
The event also included the presentation of the 2025 Yearbook of Entrepreneurship, Economy and Social Innovation by Santiago Giraldo, professor in the Department of Journalism and Communication Sciences at the UAB, and the lecture ‘Agricultural cooperativism in Catalonia: an example of commitment to the territory and its people’, given by Josep Lluís Bosque, head of the Representation Unit of the Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives of Catalonia.
