As part of the coordination of the SPARK Poland mentoring program, the Nencki Institute hosted Design Thinking workshops. All teams participating in the SPARK Program took part in the workshops. 

The workshops were led by Design Thinking trainers and focused on a user-centered approach to biomedical innovation. Participants analyzed real, unmet medical needs, mapped patient and key stakeholder pathways, defined key challenges, and developed preliminary solution concepts.

During the workshops, the teams went through all the key stages of the Design Thinking process – from problem exploration and user interviews, through synthesis and idea generation, to early prototyping and validation. The workshops are an important step towards strengthening the goal of implementing scientific research into clinical practice and increasing the market readiness of projects supported by the SPARK Poland program.

The event was accompanied by a regular mentoring session, which is an integral part of the SPARK Poland mentoring program. During this session, participants had the opportunity to interact directly with experienced experts from industry and academia, receiving individual feedback and strategic guidance on the further development of their projects and implementation paths.

The SPARK Poland mentoring programme is funded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and aims to support the translation of high-impact biomedical research into viable therapeutic solutions and medical technologies with real societal benefit.

SPARK Teams are led by 

• Dr Urszula Kozłowska Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry Polish Academy of Sciences,  with the project: “Development of affordable therapeutic candidate for Alzheimer’s Disease”
• Prof. Jacek Tabarkiewicz, University of Rzeszów, with the project: “Development of treatment for prevention of heterotopic ossifications in fibrodysplasia ossificans progressive (FOP)”
• Dr hab. Tomasz W. Turowski, Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics Polish Academy of Science, with the project: “Small molecule modulator of RNA polymerase III”