The design area of Tecnun is collaborating in the Datemat project, within the Erasmus+ call, together with other European partners from Italy, Finland, Denmark and also other partners from Spain. The partners include universities, technology centres specialised in materials and business clusters. Two professors from Tecnun have recently attended one of these meetings in Copenhagen. One of them, Aitor Cazón, tells us more about this project.

What was your visit to Copenhagen about?

Within the European Datemat project in which we are working in the Design Area, there are several transnational meetings with the rest of the project partners in order to share results and take decisions on the future steps to be taken in the following tasks. In January, we were in Milan for this first transnational workshop and in September it has been organised in Copenhagen.

Tell us about the European project you are collaborating on.

Datemat is an initiative that aims to develop new teaching methodologies to achieve a better transfer of knowledge and technology from universities and technology centres to companies. The project focuses on four of the so-called emerging materials and technologies: wearables, nanomaterials, biomaterials and self-healing materials. Within the consortium, we work with nanomaterials together with FAD (Fomento Artes y Diseño), which provides knowledge of materials, and BCD (Barcelona Centro de Diseño), a business group.

Have you been there with other members of Tecnun?

Yes, Mabel Rodríguez, another teacher from the Design Area, and I, Aitor Cazón, were there. In Milan, Paz Morer and Leire Francés were there, so this time it was our turn to "work abroad".

What experience do they bring with them?

Very good. From a professional point of view it is an opportunity to exchange experiences and ways of working and networking with some of the leading universities in the fields of design and technology at European level such as the Politecnico di Milano (Italy), Aalto University (Finland) and the Copenhagen School of Design and Technology (Denmark). From a personal point of view, I for one had not been to Copenhagen and found it a very interesting city in the short time we had to do some sightseeing. The weather was beautiful and there were not many tourists: it was clearly not the high season. Even when we went to see the little mermaid there were only us and a group of Chinese tourists. In the end, our hosts Anke and Mette from KEA (Copenhagen School of Design and Technology) were great and we made the most of our two days there.

Any curiosities about the visit?

As a curiosity of the city, I was struck by the number of people cycling everywhere and all in perfect order and coordination with cars and pedestrians. In the hotel they offered us the possibility to go to the university by bike, but we told them that, for another time, because being tourists, we could cause traffic jams...