On June 17, CO-VALUE featured at the EBN Congress in Riva del Garda, Italy, with an interactive workshop on engaging citizens to accelerate innovation and market readiness. Walking into a full room against the backdrop of Lake Garda was a fitting setting for a session that drew real energy and engagement from participants throughout.
Facilitated by Marzia Mazzonetto, Robert Sanders and Daniel Domene (CEO of Solublion, one of the CO-VALUE pilots), the workshop explored how engaging citizens and society can strengthen innovation pathways and improve the chances that what gets built is actually adopted and ready to scale.

Business support practitioners and EU|BICs shared experiences from their own contexts, where they already involve people in innovation processes, where it breaks down and what holds it back. The conversation was frank, practical and rich with insight from practitioners who are navigating these questions on the ground every day.

The session connected naturally to the theme chosen by EBN for this year’s Congress: human-centric innovation, a theme that sits at the core of CO-VALUE’s work. Citizen engagement is drawing growing attention in innovation settings beyond research and rightly so: it speaks directly to the competitiveness and scale-up potential of the companies that EU|BICs support.

Particular thanks go to Trentino Sviluppo, the Congress host, for the quality of the setting and for the visible commitment to supporting innovation across the region.