On 15 June 2026, partners of the Erasmus+ project CREATE – Creathons for Real-world Education and Applied Societal Transformation in Europe gathered at the Department of Communication and Art of the University of Aveiro for a working meeting that began with a hands-on Design Thinking workshop.

The initiative took place within the framework of Work Package 2, coordinated by Catarina Lélis, with the collaboration of the remaining CREATE team members at the University of Aveiro. DigiMedia is the research unit with the largest representation within the Portuguese team.

Working collaboratively on a real-world challenge, participants explored Design Thinking as a human-centred methodology for problem-solving. The workshop guided participants through the different stages of the process—from empathy and ideation to prototyping and testing—culminating in the development of a full-scale solution that could be tested by the participants themselves.

The workshop dynamics reflect the core approach of the CREATE project: challenge-based, practical, and collaborative. The experience enabled participants to develop shared methodological competencies that will contribute to the co-creation of a toolkit supporting the implementation of Creathons in European higher education institutions.

CREATE is an Erasmus+ KA220-HED Cooperation Partnership led by Linköping University (Sweden), involving the University of Aveiro (Portugal), the University of Twente (the Netherlands), and Kaunas University of Technology (Lithuania).

The project aims to develop a flexible and replicable Creathon model that can be implemented across European higher education institutions, together with support toolkits for the various stakeholders involved in intensive, challenge-based learning approaches.