The University of Szczecin

The University of Szczecin has, in only 30 years, established itself as the leading higher education institution in West Pomerania, Poland. Each year, it educates over 15,000 students enrolled in full-time, evening, and part-time studies across seven faculties. These faculties cover a wide range of disciplines, including humanities, economics and business, law, exact and natural sciences, physical culture and health, and theology. The University of Szczecin is a recognized partner in research and education both within and outside Europe. Students can choose from 44 major courses at the bachelor’s and master’s levels, some of which include engineering education. Additionally, 58 postgraduate courses are offered for professionals, alongside several PhD programs in 14 disciplines: biology, economics, geography, history, pedagogy, philosophy, law, management, linguistics, literary studies, theology, physics, mathematics, and political science.

The Institute of Management, a part of the University of Szczecin, has strong roots in services management, with a historical involvement in research and education on transport and logistics, tourism, IT services, and finance. The Department of Business Management, within the Institute, specializes in innovation management with a strong emphasis on services. Education and research in the Department focus on data and knowledge management, creativity stimulation and management, change management, service prototyping and testing, crowdsourcing, and innovation project management. The Department employs theoretical concepts such as new product development, new service development, design thinking, service design, outcome-driven innovation, client-centered innovation, and knowledge-intensive services development.

MEET THE TEAM

Katarzyna Łobacz

Professor of Innovation Management

Katarzyna Łobacz is an Assistant Professor at University of Szczecin, Poland. She did her PhD in academic entrepreneurship, with the focus on development models of business ventures developing within academic business incubators, but her research interests are much broader and include entrepreneurial universities, entrepreneurial processes, innovation processes, service innovation, science and technology commercialization, knowledge in the process of business ventures development, business advise, knowledge-intensive and knowledge-driven entrepreneurship, innovation systems; she has been granted 3 prestigious research grants funded from National Center of Science to develop her interests in the above mentioned topics and 1 grant funded from European Commission; additionally she has participated in numerous international projects funded from European Commission, mostly under Leonardo da Vinci/Erasmus+ Programme, in which she was a principal manager, team leader, and leader of research modules, thus she was responsible for designing and managing research process at an international level; working in international teams she also actively participated in development of innovative education approaches, i.e. in designing and implementing e-learning programmes, promoting of using of modern IT tools for delivering training, creating of MOOC platforms; Katarzyna Łobacz in a main co-author of 5 books and over 50 scientific articles; she has delivered courses and training on innovation management, technical progress and innovation, use of information technologies, individual and group creativity development, innovation mindset, methods of business projects appraisal, project management; she has an extensive experience as a project manager in national and international environment (leading over 10 projects, with at least 2-years duration); her scientific and educational work has resulted in development of Center for Innovation and Knowledge Transfer in the Service Sector SERVICE-INTER LAB at the University of Szczecin, for which she has acquired a grant of 16 mln euro; she has graduated from University of Szczecin, Poland (MS, PhD) and had the education track in Maladralen University, Sweden (MS), Texas University, USA and University of Lodz (after-diploma studies), National Economics University in Hanoi (Vietnam)/ Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember in Surabaya Indonesia (post-doc programme).

Key skills Ingrid brings to DigiFABs include applied research management, transnational collaboration, valorisation and entrepreneurship.

“The DigiFABs project connects several of our key research themes and topics in the field of digital and sustainable entrepreneurship. Plus it provides another wonderful opportunity to collaborate with our international partners”

Jordan Klimek

Senior Lecturer & Researcher

Jordan Klimek is a sociologist, and assistant professor at the Department of Organization and Management of the Institute of Management at the University of Szczecin. Daily, he coordinates the activities of the Field Research Laboratory. He participated in several dozen national and international research projects in the field of organisational sociology. His works have been published in international scientific journals.

Key skills for the DIGIFAB project are social research management and knowledge of organisational culture.

Piotr Niedzielski

Professor

Piotr Niedzielski is a Full Professor working currently at Szczecin University. He’s an experienced researcher, particularly in the fields like service innovation, investment project appraisal, innovation audit, economy digitalization, author of many scientific publications. He’s well known from his consultancy and knowledge commercialization activities. He has gained enormous managerial experience having a role of CEO in numerous companies, HEIs, and NGOs for over 30 years.

Key competences Piotr brings to DIGIFABs include great leadership, effective networking, huge research and teaching experience.