Ioana Beleiu: "The discussions with members of the UPTEC team have encouraged me to look at our own activities from a new perspective"

Ioana Natalia Beleiu || Lecturer || Babeș-Bolyai University || Romania || +48000 students and +3000 personnel

At UPTEC, our doors are open to new ideas, innovation, challenges and exchange. We welcome startups, universities, hubs and large companies from around the world. In this edition of Open Doors, we speak with Ioana Beleiu from the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration Babeș-Bolyai University in Romania, one of UPTEC’s partners in the SMAR3TS project.

Introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your research project.

My name is Ioana Natalia Beleiu, and I am a lecturer at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration at Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. My main interests are project management and entrepreneurship.

I am also part of the UBB Student i-Lab team, our university’s incubator. One of the initiatives we are currently developing is an AI tutoring project designed to guide students as they develop innovation and entrepreneurial projects. My research at UPTEC is directly connected to this initiative. I am exploring how a university-based incubator and science and technology park supports early-stage projects, from the initial idea to testing, validation and further development.

My aim is to identify useful practices from UPTEC that can be adapted to our own context and integrated into the AI tutoring project and the wider activities of UBB Student i-Lab. In parallel, together with my colleagues Catalina Crisan and Ovidiu Bordean, I am working on an e-book called The Entrepreneurial Journey. It is designed for students and combines theory with real entrepreneurial case studies, videos and practical exercises.

Why did you choose to come to UPTEC?

I chose UPTEC because it brings together three areas that are central to my work: the university, entrepreneurship and innovation. I wanted to learn from an organisation with extensive practical experience not only in supporting startups and early-stage projects, but also in building an active community around them.

For me, it was important to go beyond academic articles and formal descriptions of incubation. I wanted to speak directly with the people involved and understand how UPTEC works in practice: how its activities are organised, which strategies it uses and how it connects entrepreneurs with the wider ecosystem. Because we also support student-led ideas at UBB Student i-Lab, UPTEC offered a very relevant environment from which to learn, while knowing that our contexts and scale are different.

What expectations did you have before starting your secondment in Porto? 

Before coming to Porto, I expected to gain a better understanding of what happens behind the scenes in a university-based incubator. I wanted to learn not only what programmes and services are offered, but also how support is organised in practice and adapted to the needs of different startups and innovation projects.

I hoped to have open discussions with members of the UPTEC team about the organisation's way of working, its strategies and the lessons it has learned over time. I also wanted to see how UPTEC creates connections among entrepreneurs, experts, researchers and other stakeholders, and to return home with concrete ideas that could strengthen both UBB Student i-Lab and our AI tutoring project.

Were your expectations met?

Yes, my expectations have been met so far. I have had several very useful discussions with members of the UPTEC team about how the organisation functions, how its activities are structured and what strategies it uses to support startups and innovation projects. These discussions gave me a clearer and realistic understanding of the practical side of incubation. They also gave me many ideas that could be adapted to UBB Student i-Lab. For the AI tutoring project, the discussions were especially useful in thinking about the kind of guidance students need and the moments when digital support should be complemented by a human mentor.

What I value most is that the learning has been grounded in real experience. The aim is not to copy the UPTEC model, but to select the practices that are most relevant and adapt them carefully to our own academic and educational context.

Which connections to stakeholders in the Porto ecosystem could be made?

During my secondment, members of the UPTEC team helped me understand both the formal processes and the everyday work involved in supporting innovative teams. I also had the opportunity to take part in the UPTEC Community Gathering - Sustainability Edition. It brought together people from different professional and academic backgrounds around a shared interest in sustainability and innovation and showed me how community events can create space for informal exchange and new connections.

In the next stage of my secondment, I will also have discussions with entrepreneurs whose projects have been supported by UPTEC. I am particularly interested in understanding their entrepreneurial journeys and the challenges they encountered in their path. Their perspective will complement what I have learned from the UPTEC team and may provide practical examples for my research, the AI tutoring project and case studies for The Entrepreneurial Journey.

What aspects of your secondment in Porto did you especially enjoy?

What I have enjoyed most is the openness of the people I have met and their willingness to share their experience. The discussions with members of the UPTEC team have been practical and honest, and they have encouraged me to look at our own activities at UBB Student i-Lab from a new perspective. I particularly enjoyed the Community Gathering because of its informal and interactive atmosphere. Discovering Porto and its university environment has also made the experience personally rewarding.

How will your project continue after your time here in Porto?

After returning to Cluj-Napoca, I will organise and analyse the information, examples and ideas collected through my discussions with the UPTEC team and the entrepreneurs supported by UPTEC. An important next step will be to integrate the most relevant lessons into the AI tutoring project developed within UBB Student i-Lab. The UPTEC experience will also help us think more broadly about how mentoring, feedback, networking and community activities can complement the digital tutoring component.

I will also continue working on The Entrepreneurial Journey. The experiences and entrepreneurial stories collected in Porto can contribute international examples and practical insights to the English edition of the book. Finally, I hope to maintain the relationships developed here and continue the exchange between UPTEC and Babeș-Bolyai University through future research, educational and community-building collaborations.