In a first of a kind move in the academic history of the city, the big four universities of Cluj-Napoca, Romania, gathered their forces to organize Innovation Days (iDays), an innovathon dedicated to healthcare, which took place in Cluj between 1-2 November 2019. This is the first time such an event was organized by all the big universities in Cluj as equal partners, bringing together their knowledge in the benefit of the patients, the healthcare system and the community as a whole. Cluj-Napoca (often referred to simply as Cluj) is the unofficial capital of Transylvania and one of the most vibrant and cosmopolitan cities in Eastern Europe, a cultural center, an academic hub, and of one the most important innovation hubs of the country.

The participating universities were Babes-Bolyai University (UBB), the University of Medicine and Pharmacy (UMF), the University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine (USAMV), and the Technical University (UTCN), with the support of the Liver Research Club and the Student Entrepreneurship Association “Iuliu Hațieganu”. The 8 hours long innovathon was part of the EIT Health iDays, an event which took place in 31 locations within several countries across Europe, during which students met to develop and present their digital health projects. The event aims to show how innovative ideas targeting the health sector can be transformed into real life projects, with impact on the patients and the healthcare system. During the program, students are presented with practical tools for health innovation and work in multidisciplinary teams to address real health challenges.

iDays is a unique annual series of events designed to promote innovation in healthcare among students, through a 2 day program conducted within academic institutions in Europe. The event was held in some of the top universities in Europe, like Oxford and Imperial College in the UK or the University of Tartu in Estonia (ranked as one of the best in Eastern Europe). Romania is one of the 20 EU countries where iDays were organized this year, with the support of FreshBlood HealthTech Community, the EIT Health RIS hub for Romania. EIT Health is an European network of 140 leading medical, pharmaceutical, technology companies, research institutions and universities, supported by the European Union.

Making an impact together

The host of the event, UMF, already had a group which was working on innovation and digital health, but decided to co-organize this event when they noticed that within their incubator they were lacking the know-how from the technical part or some other input that could be complimented from people with different backgrounds, more likely to be found in this kind of competitions.

“I think it’s a first step of bringing all the universities on the same table and to actually realize that we have the knowledge to properly impact our communities.”, said Radu Pirlog, PhD student at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy, member of the jury and representative of university hosting the event.

While for the universities its important to know each other, to see what kind of projects they are each involved in and to apply together for funding to support their research and innovation, from the point of view of the innovation ecosystem, there is a big need to put together the research part with the practical aspects of the research, to create a link between the academia and the startups environment ecosystem, and the students are seen as having a great potential, as they can be a link between these two, as they are more open minded and more eager to develop their ideas.

“I believe that’s the role of universities, as hubs and accelerators of knowledge producing, and I believe we need to move into to the next steps, not just doing business as usual, doing education, as we did until now, but we need to step it up, to actually push the students to face real life problems and try to generate real life solutions”, said Razvan Chereches, professor of Public Health at Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj.

During the event, the students formed multidisciplinary teams (with medical, technical or economic backgrounds) and tried to solve real healthcare challenges, focusing on the medical care outside the hospital, at home. To address the challenges, they used their business skills and digital health ideas, while mentors with experience in the field of healthcare innovation helped them build their projects. At the end of the event, the teams presented their ideas and were judged by a group of experts who used standardized scoring criteria to award the best teams.

“For students I think it’s really important to see that they get support, and that the faculty acknowledges them, their potential in doing more than learning in different classes, on taking exams. For our faculty this is really important because if they succeed, we succeed.”, said Adina Rus, from the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj, and member of the jury at iDays Cluj.

Bringing change by addressing real life problems

The jury chose as the winner of the competition a project called Simply Care, a personal health assistant, a wristband that will give advice based on the condition of the patient. Simply Care targets old people which don’t understand their disease and need support in a situation where the medical doctors don’t always have time to follow them and to give them explanation on a day to day basis. 

“It was really nice to make something really from nothing, in just one day. It was a lot of pressure, because you have to do a lot of research, to be sure that your solutions attacks the problem, and it’s relevant and a strong one. And you have only one day to build a business, which is really hard, but also exhilarating when you succeed.”, said Beniamin Matei from the winning team of the iDays Cluj, with project Simply Care.

The winning team will participate to the Winners Event, which will take place in Paris on December 1st, 2019, where they will meet with colleagues from all the participating universities. During the event in Paris, the students will be provided with support and resources to further develop their ideas and will also receive additional training in innovation methodology.

“We have a lot of work to do, in food, in health, in public services. We have to change a lot of things, and with this involvement of the students, we can do more for the community of Cluj, and our region.”, said Lucian Cuibus, from the University of Agriculture, Food and Veterinary Medicine of Cluj.

The civil society creates the glue of the innovation ecosystem

As EIT Health is trying to establish and promote the cooperation between universities and industry, the significant glue for an ecosystem to foster innovation is seen as the self organized element of the ecosystem, the civil society. And this is where Cluj, compared to other regions of Romania and even compared to other cities in the CEE, makes a significant difference, by having a good cohesion between the key players of the ecosystem, mostly because the vibrancy of its civil society. This makes the whole communication between the partners not about what is in the research department of the universities, or what is in the technology departments of the industry, but it’s building up from the actual needs of the market, which are the patients, which is the unmet need, where the whole ecosystem should be built around.

“I believe that innovation is about private individuals and Cluj happens to have some very strong, very dedicated private individuals. That’s one of the most important factors for innovation, because if you don’t have dedicated private people who have the ambition to make the system better, then it will not work. The civil society is very present in Cluj and I am missing this one, even in my own ecosystem in Budapest, because that is the glue, that is what is taking the whole system together, the catalyst, which makes it move. Everybody is very happy in the status quo, and everybody knows the change is painful, change is difficult, change will help some, and change will deprive some from the rights from the status and everything, but change is inevitable, the digital has come, up on our necks, you cannot resist it, so it’s better just to get in front and just start a change”, said Marton Kis, Health Innovation Expert from the Semmelweis University, Budapest.

FreshBlood, a Cluj based NGO which aims to support health-related startups is now seen by most of the key players in the local ecosystem as the main catalyst for healthcare innovation, and an expression of the involvement of the local civil society. FreshBlood is also one of the hubs of the EIT Health in Romania, and in May 2019 has become connected to the European Connected Health Alliance, a European network of ecosystems, forming the regional network Transylvania Digital Health Ecosystem, with the purpose of increasing the quality of the regional health services, through European collaboration and technology. The vision of the Transylvanian Digital Health Ecosystem is to become a dedicated healthcare focused innovation accelerator for Eastern Europe. 

A win – win situation for the universities, the students, the patients, the local community, and the businesses

For the universities, an event like iDays brings visibility and new opportunities for collaborations, both with the local and international partners, while for the students it brings opportunities to work in an multidisciplinary environment, opening their minds, finding new ways of approaching their ideas of healthcare. For the students of medicine in particular, events like this makes them understand what healthcare is outside of the patients and outside of the disease, by approaching healthcare in a more holistic way. For the local community the hope is that some of the ideas that are going to be generated in such events, can be applied in the future, for the benefit of the community.

“I think for the local community, it offers an opportunity for students to innovate. Students need events where they can innovate. An event that’s taking place each year, can have a good impact on community because some of the ideas can be can can become startups, real products on the market, and this is something interesting for community, to have their own products, which are innovative and started from here from Cluj.”, said Valentin Sita from the Technical University of Cluj.

Thinking of EIT Health, its main mission and vision, to facilitate the conversion of the research and the conversion of the technology of research of universities and technology and product scopes of industry, for long time, due to a rusty mentality, this two tended to speak in parallel, not matching their ideas, not getting into actual production. That’s why for the ecosystem it’s important to catalyze the transition and the communication, and to put into the scope the actual need of the patient, the unmet need, so that the two main players, the academia and the industry, can align, and the final result to become useful and sustainable.

As a next step for the ecosystem, the idea of a healthcare innovation incubator in Cluj is starting to take roots, and has attracted supporters from outside Romania too. Roel Kamerling, managing coordinator for public-private innovation programs at the Technical University of Delft (TU Delft), the Netherlands is one of them. During a visit to assess the health innovation ecosystem of Cluj, Roel endorsed the idea of creating a innovation incubator in Cluj, a place where startups from the HealthTech area could develop, receive support and get connections to relevant partners, based on the model of the YES!Delft incubator, ranked the best business incubator affiliated with a university in Europe, according to the UBI Ranking, and number 2 in the world.

For Cluj, the future of innovation looks bright, as Razvan Chereches sees the ecosystem strongly coming together, and the universities transforming themselves and becoming a force for innovation in the city: “In Cluj we have the ferment for a real culture of innovation. There are a lot of forces are coming together and they’re starting to complement each other. We have a chance here to transform the university into what it was meant to be initially: integrating the community and pushing the community forward.”.

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Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), ranked number one university in the Netherlands and the 50th in the world, has been supporting, since 2005, a startup incubator, training teams of students and other young entrepreneurs in setting up their company and networking the founders with potential investors, suppliers and customers. On a mission to build tomorrow’s leading firms, over 200 companies have been set up in YES!Delft incubator so far, raising at least 316 M€ in private funding. Yes!Delft is considered the best business incubator affiliated with a university in Europe, according to the UBI Ranking, and number 2 in the world. One of the focus areas of YES!Delft is MedTech, and the incubator is a partner of EIT Health, which enables the startups to tap into this vast European network.

Roel Kamerling is a managerial coordinator for public-private innovation programs at TU Delft, most of them focused on innovation in health and EIT Health programs. During a visit of Roel in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, we spoke with him about the best practices for creating an innovation ecosystem in healthcare, in Cluj.

Roel, could you please tell us what is your role at TU Delft?

My role at TU Delft is to set up new activities with our researchers and industry and other researchers outside the University, to do research and to develop new competitive products and services. I’m also involved in supporting startups going to our incubator, YES!Delft. As a liaison there I make sure that talented people from the University with the potential to set up a company, are aware of the opportunity to move to our incubator. And I support connected startups from the University side as much as I can.

Our incubator is situated in a building within our university campus and was established as an independent company owned by the University, the City of Delft and another research institute in Delft, TNO. The incubator runs a programe to train young teams in how to set up their company and supports them by organizing a network of potential investors, suppliers and customers. Next to that they develop now more and more training and development programs in entrepreneurship for professionals working in industry. 

Tell us more about EIT Health and what you do there.

EIT Health is an EU supported program to stimulate the development of new products or services that support people in living active and healthy lives as well as creating jobs in innovative companies. I have had several jobs in EIT Health and in one – in the Accelerator program – I had a special focus at business creation using knowledge as a basis. For that program I’ve coordinated the development of EU wide validation bootcamps. I am now also a mentor for the Innostars RIS hub programs, a program that supports regions from Southern and Central Europe to develop the innovation ecosystem to the next level.

You’ve said that you are looking for ecosystems around Southern and Central Europe. Why are you visiting Cluj?

Dr. Ion Petrovai (co-founder FreshBlood) asked me to come to Romania to have a better understanding of what’s happening in Cluj, being one of the EIT Health Innostar regions. We had many interesting talks with the universities and cluster organisations and I brought with me a good example from Delft on what we do and how we overpassed our situation of being a university mainly focused on education and research and little on entrepreneurship.

In 2018 FreshBlood successfully applied for being one of the RIS hubs of the EIT Health in Romania. There are a select number of hubs of high potential regions and they all did an analysis last year including a SWOT analysis of their own region. For 2019 they had to make a plan on how to improve the health innovation system of the region. So, now we know what their strengths and weaknesses are, we can also start to plan concrete actions for the regions. So we understand what needs to be done, who could do it what would be necessary for expertise, investments or new policies.

What are the good practices you think Cluj would benefit from? 

What I saw in the past few days was that there’s a lot already happening in Cluj. Talented people, good education level, great companies, there’s a willingness to build more international competitive products and services and move beyond outsourcing of IT services.

In the process of coming from a first idea for a company or product to the final product & business, there are some steps to take in entrepreneurship. There are some essential questions to answer:

• Is there a problem – solution fit?
• Is there a product – market fit?
• Do I have a team to work with?

And a good company incubator is the perfect place to find the answers for such questions. Creating an incubator in Cluj would be a fantastic idea, a physical place where startups in e.g. MedTech, robotics, IT maybe mechanical engineering can develop their company, and get support for connecting to all the relevant partners that a young company needs, such as launching customers, (medical) experts, investors etc.

What about the YES!Delft incubator in Delft?

The YES!Delft program runs on the same principles as some similar entrepreneurship education programs at Stanford University and MIT. It’s an incubator where we mentor new startups in order to get funding and develop their ideas and have contact with possible customers and industrial partners.

The mission of this incubator in Delft is to build tomorrow’s leading firms. If you want to enter the incubator, as a company and you are reviewed as good enough (there’s a quality check) you will have to pay a monthly rent. You will get access to the education program, the network, all the events that are taking place there and also free coffee. The incubator does not give you funding automatically but you can apply for grants, bank loans or at a funding agency with different conditions.

Can you describe how the program works?

Well, if you want to grow to the next phase with your business, you can either do that yourself or you can apply for joining the YES!Delft incubator program.

First phase or actually the pre-phase of the program is a bootcamp for validation of the mentioned 3 main questions. That’s a good way for companies or teams with an idea to prepare for the launch of their company. If you decide to launch, you can apply for the incubation program and actually start. Then again there is an extensive support program for young teams to setup the company. The idea is to grow into a sustainable company  within a few years and then you can enter a growth support program. Indeed, in all these phases of the program, they have a very extensive network of mentors, potential launching customers, international collaborations and investor network. And you get support in understanding what is the best type of financing for you.

TU Delft has investment funds for several phases of starting and growing companies, some of them together with close-by Leiden University and Erasmus University Rotterdam, so our companies will have access to several funding sources. There’s also a regional investment agency who wants to invest in the very early stages of these companies. This is a combination of public and private investments.

For how long is this program running at TU Delft?

Since 2005. There are around 200 companies that have been set up in YES!Delft. Since 2005 they raised at least 316 M€ in private funding. I’m sure the numbers are more, as these are only the publicly known numbers. Some of the companies are based on IP from TU Delft, but that is not a requirement to get into the YES!Delft incubator.

Yes!Delft is the best business incubator affiliated with a university of Europe according to the UBI Ranking and number 2 in the world. A very important side effect is that now entrepreneurship is cool among our students and university staff, which was not the case when we started in 2005.

What do you think about entrepreneurship and startups in Europe? 

Now more and more people, at least think it’s cool to do a startup, but percentage wise, the ones that actually do it, is still very low. As I said, YES!Delft generated 200 startup companies in 13 years, while we had on average 20,000 students every year at our campus. These are good companies, they created a lot of products that are helping people with renewable energy solutions, health products or new robots. Those companies created thousand of new jobs, directly for themselves and also for suppliers. 

Moreover for TU Delft they are very interesting collaborators in R&D projects. So, even with low percentages of students and staff that actually set up companies there is still a high return on investment. We see that the early startups that are now mature actually start to mentor young teams and invest in the new generation. Because of the good program and interesting network we now also see that startups from different countries come to DELFT to develop their company. 

The possibility of setting up such a program was discussed as a result of the EIT Health SWOT analysis but do you think this kind of incubator would be feasible for Cluj?

There are quite some courses and projects taking place already but it’s completely scattered all over the city and at different universities, not really coherent. I would suggest one incubator for the city so that you have sufficient deal flow. And teams can come to enter the program from Universities, from people that are mid career and want to do something else, companies that have ideas, doesn’t matter, as long as they want to launch a company that has a good product and a good team of people. Then, it’s essential to have an incubator somewhere in a physical location, where people can share ideas and do their own work as a company and get support focused on their needs as a startup.

Shouldn’t the Medical University create this incubator in Cluj?

Medical University should be part of it but not as the only one. There has to be a collaboration between technical, medical and business universities and definitely the Technical University should be part of such an incubator. More products and services than just health can be developed in a startup of course. Always, the industrial players in the city or region are a big asset for a young startup.

This incubator should not be an investment of just one of the universities or companies. This incubator should be ment to build tomorrow’s leading firms and you have to have a joint understanding of that because everybody will benefit from it. And everybody is needed to support the young companies.

Cluj-Napoca based FreshBlood is a community which aims to support health-related startups, it is one of the hubs of the EIT Health in Romania, and in May 2019 has become connected to the European Connected Health Alliance, a European network of ecosystems, forming the regional network Transylvania Digital Health Ecosystem, with the purpose of increasing the quality of the regional health services, through European collaboration and technology.

The vision of the Transylvanian Digital Health Ecosystem is to become a dedicated healthcare focused innovation accelerator for Eastern Europe. You can read more about the Transylvanian Digital Health Ecosystem, here …

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