Lab2Market@Técnico celebrates ten years in 2026. The presentation of this year’s edition was part of the Técnico Innovation Summit, held on 3 February at Técnico Innovation Center powered by Fidelidade, and brought together participants from the three previous editions.
During the opening session, Pedro Amaral, Vice-President of Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, for Corporate Interface, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, noted that “Lab2Market helped create the Técnico Innovation Summit”. He highlighted that researchers demonstrated “their ability to create useful and impactful solutions”, which is embodies “the spirit” of this initiative. According to Pedro Fonseca, Director of University Relations and Digital Upskill at NTT Data – a partner company in the project and a member of the Técnico Partner Network – the competition “helps build a bridge between the market and research”. “This is what Lab2Market is all about,” he summarised.
“I killed my first attempt to start a company because of Lab2Market”, shared Diogo Caetano, a competitor in the 1st edition of Lab2Market@Técnico, during a discussion between three participants from previous editions of the competition and Pedro Fonseca (NTT Data), moderated by Carla Patrocínio, Director of Technology Transfer at Técnico. The competitor in the 1st edition of Lab2Market@Técnico assured that “it is a challenge for engineers to realise that they do not have all the answers”.
Gonçalo Ribeiro, a researcher at the Laboratory of Instrumentation and Experimental Particle Physics (LIP) and winner of the latest edition of Lab2Market@Técnico, explained how the team’s experience from 2016 to 2025 served as a “trigger moment” and a “tool to communicate our work effectively”.
Diogo Rato, co-founder of Testwaves, emphasised the importance of answering key questions such as “Understanding whether there is a market”, “whether the solution makes sense”, and “whether the conditions are right for setting up a business” during his participation in Lab2Market@Técnico2023. In a nutshell, he summarised the experience by stating: “Lab2Market helps researchers kick-start their careers”.
Pedro Fonseca highlighted the “most common blind spot” among entrepreneurs: they often focus too much on technology rather than first “identifying a problem and then seeking a solution”, which is crucial for “scaling up” effectively.
Applications for Lab2Market@Técnico 2026 are open until 12 February.
