Externally funded research, development and innovation projects as learning environments: Case: The MOBI project

Research, Development and Innovation (RD&I) projects are learning environments creating new skills and competencies for students, teachers, researchers, companies and public organizations. Our RD&I project model builds academic insights and competences by solving real problems for real people. This case-study describes the model through the MOBI project, whose project idea was developed in dialogue with lecturers and students; later on the dialogue was expanded to include a more extensive network with other students, teachers, researchers, companies (both device and service developers and end-users), public end-users and publicly-funded expert organizations for financing RD&I. MOBI has expanded not only to an academic multi-disciplinary collaboration but also collaboration with four companies and government officials as police and emergency departments. Our paper describes how the project was integrated into the study units and studies in general, as well as providing a description of the roles of different stakeholders when creating a learning environment. We will reclaim these lessons learned within our following RD&I projects, such as MACICO.