On 16 and 17 May 2024 the meeting of the pan-European network Intellectual Property (IP) In Education took place in Heraklion, Crete.
The IP in Education network is an initiative of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and aims to bring together experts from the Ministries of Education of the EU Member States and representatives of national IP offices to formulate a common approach to IP in education. The HCO has been a member of the network since 2015.
The meeting was organized by the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and began with the greetings of Ms. Zetta A. Makri, Deputy Minister for Education, Religious Affairs and Sports, Mr. Panagiotis Kanellopoulos, Director General of the Industrial Property Organisation (OBI) and Mr. Joáo Negrao, Executive Director of the EUIPO.
The meeting continued with speeches and briefings by EUIPO, the European Committee and the Greek Ministry of Education on issues related to the integration of IP in curricula. On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Greek Copyright School programme, the HCO presented its strategy and actions for primary education.
This was followed by a presentation of the European Οorganization for Junior Achievement (JA) which is involved in providing skills and entrepreneurship programmes for young people. Estonia, Spain, Belgium, Spain and Ireland then held panel discussions on the integration of intellectual property into their national curricula. Participants then took part in workshops focusing on (a) implementing good practices for integrating IP into curricula, (b) promoting entrepreneurship education and (c) good practices for the use of GenAI in education.
The second day of the meeting started with feedback from the previous day’s workshops. This was followed by a presentation of the new features of the open online course (MOOC) IP Essentials created by EUIPO. Next, the European Patent Office (EPO) presented its new activities followed by a discussion on the impact of AI in education by the European Trade Union Committee for Education (ETUCE). The session ended with conclusions from Kari Kivinen (EUIPO) in charge of the IP in Education project.
The photos below are from the event.