The Euroweek Experience: Supporting Sustainable Development Through Academic Programs Promoting Student Research, Technology Innovation and the Commercialization Process

University-based research continues to rely on industry partnerships to help support the innovation, exchange and application of new technologies. At the same time, University R&D has increasingly focused on technologies that support a wide range of environmental, societal and economic Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) launched by the United Nations in 2015. This has put a spotlight on the need to address technology transfer from the university to industry, where the university often lacks the resources needed to assess the feasibility of market adoption of new technologies. Recent literature indicates that there is a role for the international academic community to play in support of university entrepreneurship that can foster the transfer of knowledge to industry and facilitate the commercialization of new technology products. This paper presents PRIME Networking's Euroweek, an international academic program where students collaborate on multi-country, cross-disciplinary teams to identify research projects with the potential of having a positive environmental, economic or societal impact.