WHO WE ARE
MAX project is implemented by the European Creative Hubs Network, Fab Lab Barcelona, UPTEC and Makery. Each member of the consortium has a strong background, expertise and knowledge of the cultural and creative industries, creative hubs, maker-spaces and fab-labs. ECHN is the leading organization of the Consortium.
The European Creative Hubs Network (ECHN) is the coordinator of MAX project. ECHN is a peer-led network with a mission to enhance the creative, economic and social impact of hubs. It is the first network in Europe, specifically tailored to support physical spaces that host and provide services to multiple creative businesses.
ECHN aims to enhance the ecosystem that supports the development and growth of the creative and cultural sector by supporting the subsistence and growth of creative hubs in Europe, creating a community of experienced creative hubs leaders across Europe from a variety of sectors and promoting hubs as innovative models to support the creative economy in Europe.
Charalampidis Vassilis
Vlachopoulou Chryssa
UPTEC – Science and Technology Park of University of Porto promotes knowledge sharing between the university and the market, by supporting the creation and development of knowledge-intensive business projects in the arts, sciences and technologies.
Through its community of startups, innovation centres and anchor projects, UPTEC offers its projects the specific support they need, engaging them into a broader and cross-disciplinary network of national and international partners and mentors. Since the beginning of its activity, in 2007, UPTEC has already supported over 500 business ideas.
Fátima São Simão
Fab Lab Barcelona is a research and design laboratory crucial to the Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia. It supports the implementation and development of educational and research programs as well as acting as the global coordination entity for Fab Academy, a digitally distributed educational platform where students develop knowledge about the principles, applications and implications of digital manufacturing technologies.
Fab Lab Barcelona is one of the leading laboratories in the worldwide network of Fab Labs due to its technological equipment, a key element to explore the relationship between the digital and physical worlds and to foster bottom-up innovation. This approach has successfully been demonstrated to turn research projects into successful products and communities, displaying Fab Lab Barcelona’s capacity to coordinate and lead research activities into plausible outcomes.
In collaboration with MIT’s CBA and Fab Foundation, Fab Lab Barcelon is also founder of the Fab City Global Initiative. Fab City takes the ideals of the Fab Lab – connectivity, culture and creativity – and scales them to the City. Fab Lab BArcelona coordinates the Distributed Design Platform, co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union, a unique platform of 15 members developing Europe-wide programming and advocacy for emerging creative talent working at the intersection of making and design.
Kate Armstrong
Oliver Juggins
Makery is an online information media & medialab founded by Digital Art International (ART2M) in June 2014. It aims to cover the dynamism of the maker culture and give out information on the creative communities of labs: fablabs (fabrication laboratories), fab city hubs (dedicated to production relocalisation, circular economy & distributed design), makerspaces (for community tinkering), hackerspaces (spaces self-managed by people wanting to divert technologies), medialabs (dedicated to new media experimentations), creative hubs (community spaces in the CCIs sector), third places (places for civic engagement), living labs (encompassing users-industries co-design in processes of innovation and experimentation), biohacklabs (the scientific, DIYbio and bioinformatics version of hacklabs), care labs (dedicated to open health innovation and healthcare access), artlabs (dedicated to media and biomedia art production).