The University of Trento promotes innovation by working closely with businesses and implementing technology and knowledge transfer actions that allow the positive impact on society and the economy of the research results and expertise generated by researchers.
Through its departments and centres, the University of Trento makes its academic and research resources available to businesses, professionals and public bodies which can then commission projects by contacting the individual department or centre, thus broadening its connection with society and the market.
The numerous successful partnerships with the entities involved are an indicator of the great impact that commissioned research has both inside and outside the University.
The University also welcomes the involvement of businesses in project proposals submitted in the context of public funding calls. The TRL, Technology Readiness Level, is a value between 1 and 9 which rates the technological maturity of a research product: the higher the rating, the closer the product is to commercialisation or scalable production.
As well as potential private investors, the principal opportunities for financing of research projects aiming for a high TRL come from specific tenders published by a variety of funding bodies at local, national and international level.
International calls
EU EIC
EIC is a European programme offering three different funding schemes based on the initial TRL rating of a project: Pathfinder for low TRL ratings, Transition for medium ratings and Accelerator for high ones.
EU EIT
EIT is a European programme in which communities composed of entities of different nationalities share their skills and knowledge to address global challenges on specific themes. In particular, the University of Trento is a partner in five of the nine EIT communities.
National calls
MIMIT
The Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy funds, in partnership with Horizon Europe, projects for ‘industrial research’ or ‘experimental development’ led by a company.
Local calls
Fondazione VRT
Fondazione VRT funds projects to promote research and technologies with a high social and economic impact on the Trentino area.
University call
Proof of Concept (PoC) "Road to Market"
The PoC call was established in response to a specific award by CARITRO to fund the advancement of technological maturity (TRL) of a product derived from research activity within the University and therefore bring it closer to commercialisation.
Challenges are open innovation tools that are useful for finding alternative solutions to problems that businesses and public administrations must resolve in relation to a need for product and process innovation, and allow the development of relationships between companies and the University, also involving the student community.
The University of Trento has for some time offered Challenge Based Learning programmes thanks to its participation in ECIU (link https://www.unitn.it/ECIU ), funded by the European Commission under the European University call for proposals of the Erasmus+ program.
With the support of HIT, UniTrento has for some time also organised challenges in various innovation domains, which over the years has seen the involvement of over 100 businesses and public bodies and more than 700 students who have formed the teams facing the proposed challenges.
Challenges managed by UniTrento in partnership with HIT

Optimisation of processes and resolution of industrial challenges using management engineering methods (active since 2011)

Development of PoC - proof of concept for biotechnology solutions for the biomedical section (active since 2022)

Development of PoC - proof of concept for technological prototypes for the technical challenges of vascular surgery (active since 2023)

Resolution of industrial challenges using the methods of applied and experimental physics (active since 2014 and managed by the Department of Physics)
Challenges managed by HIT in partnership with UniTrento

Improvement and innovation of the user experience using the methods of design thinking and User-Centred Design (active since 2017)

Topological and structural optimisation and mechanical redesign to maximise the benefits of additive manufacturing (active since 2018)

Development of data science and artificial intelligence solutions applied to industrial challenges (active since 2021)

Development of data science and artificial intelligence solutions applied to public administration challenges (active since 2022)