Machine Learning and System Dynamics in the Context of Co-Creation

BIP (Blended Intensive Programme) is an intensive course involving European partners, between higher education institutions and companies, to address the latest trends and innovations in specific areas of knowledge. Besides the contribution in terms of learning to work in teams and multicultural environments, the richness of the BIP lies in the fact that they address topics of such a recent and innovative nature that they represent the vanguard of knowledge.

Coordinator                                                                     Partners

Team ISEP: Teresa Pereira; Marisa Guerra Pereira;  Carlos Ferreira, José Carlos Sá, Rafael Pedrosa.

Team SAXION: Jacques  Bazen, Mark Schrooten, Sabine Overgoor

Team UVIGO: Mar Fernández Vázquez-Noguerol; Jesús García Arca; José Comesaña Benavides, Iria González Romero

Team Polito Torino: Giovanni Zenezini; Filippo Maria Ottaviani

Type of Participants (Learners): students from bachelor and master courses  in Mechanical engineering, Industrial Engineering, Industrial Enginereing  and Managenet and related courses

Start: Kick Off Zoom meeting  19 Frebruary 2026
End: Summary Zoom meeting 23 April  2026

Methods and outcomes:
Erasmus+ Project Week consists of:
- Lectures for students delivered by lecturers from ISEP and supporting lecturers from visiting partners universities (of applied sciences and Industrial Engineering). See below at the intensive week programme for details.
- Presentations and product trainings and data sets provided by the applicable host company  (Bosch Termo Aveiro  and Deventer) 
- Real time visit and surveying/gathering information from clients and analysing this data.
- Group work and workshops in  Design thinking methodology and on Machine Learning and System Dynamics methods.
- Development of business concepts/business cases based on the analytics of the specific topics provided by the host company.

TOTAL WORKLOAD: 90 HOURS – 3 ECTS points

•    12 hours of preparation for the lectures.
•    1 hour  (intermediate Pitch + 1 hour  (online exam or Intermediate report presentation and assessment on the ongoing progress in the co-creation project.
•    12 hours of preparations for the test (final report).

•    1 hour   (Final Pitch presentation and report assessment of the co-creation project).

•    34 hours of participation in real mobility activities in the Machine Learning Methods and System Dynamics in context of co-creation (dates: 23 March 2026-to 27 March 2026– BIP Scientific program to submit to CTC ISEP.

•    30 hours of group work of students incl. setting communication channels between members of each team, own studies and  datasets  analyses provided by the host company and public available (e.g.  https://www.kaggle.com/) , preparation of the business concept and final report (see the presential programme).

GRADING:

 Grading scale based on two factors:

•  On-line Test – 50% minimum grade 10 (0-20) (30 points)   - individual work.
•   Business concept presentation and final report – 50% minimum grade 10 (0-20) (30 points) - group work.

Expected outcomes:

•    promoting innovative pedagogical learning on innovative matters, with practical co-creation training based on the analysis of real business models - each team has to prepare its concept using analytics to improve sustainability on business processes within the host company.

•    development of students' soft skills and transferable skills with particular emphasis on teamwork in an international environment or self-presentation skills.

•    promoting practical training based on the analysis using Machine Learning and System Dynamics methods of real business models - each team has to prepare the dataset to allow the improve of business processes within the host company based on the analytics.

•   improving communication skills and language proficiency among students and lecturers,
•   building interdisciplinary work skills (groups include students of different study programs) in order to maximize results.

•    promotion of student`s mobility (mobility for studies, internships) within the Erasmus+ Programme.
•    promotion cultural exchange between the students with a better understanding of cultural issues related to the working/business environment.

•    (for the host company), an opportunity to gain fresh new ideas or to connect with outstanding Business Acceleration Week participants.

Objectives and descriptions:

The BIP Industrial Machine Learning and System Dynamics in the Context of Co-Creation in the form of a Blended Intensive Programme is an expansion of an already existing yearly student practical exchange activity, that two of the partners in this BIP (ISEP P.Porto and Saxion UAS) have worked on for the last ten years. For the coming BIP the University of Vigo (UVIGO) and  Polito Torino will join. The partnership of UVIGO  and Polito  Torino with ISEP-P.Porto already exists for more than ten years.

All participating students will be divided into multidisciplinary groups (based on their respective study programs and interests). The BIP will start with a virtual component which has two goals: the first goal is to prepare the practical work with the company and the second goal is to provide the participating students with the necessary knowledge and competences to execute the assignment/challenge of the host company. The virtual component consists of 6 online lectures given by experts from all participating HEIs. The subjects of the online lectures cover the fundamentals of Machine Learning and Systems Dynamics methods, in combination with basic knowledge of Python programming language. Therefore, the online lectures pave the way for applying these methods to the scope of the assignment/challenge set by the host company. These methods can be applied to the scope of the assignment/challenge set by the host company. The overarching general topic of this BIP is to boost the host company quantitative decision-making in business processes.  .

The virtual mobility part is followed by a physical mobility week. During this week the participating students from Saxion, UVIGO and Polito Torino will travel to ISEP P.PORTO and work on the practical implementation of their assignment/challenge for the host company. The last day of the physical mobility period will consist of a presentation for the host company in which the participants present their findings and analyses. The presentation is followed by a question and answer session, which will provide the participants with valuable feedback, to prepare their final written report.

Online Sessions  

LINK TEAMS:  https://shorturl.at/X1LAO

(12h+1h –February /March-April 2026 – Thrusday ) – 2 hours of online sessions
Description of the BIP Virtual Component  ( January/February)
The virtual component will consist of 6 online meetings/lecturers, an online test, and a closing meeting.

•    Meeting 1: Kick-Off meeting (19^th February^nd March) 7.0 p.m. (Central European Time (CET)) (6.0p.m Portugal))– introduction  to ML and SD + information about the challenge and the related company processes (Teresa Pereira, Mark Schrooten, Sabine Overgoor, Giovanni Zenezini….)  
•    Meeting 2: (5^nd March)) 7.0 p.m. (CET) (6.0p.m Portugal))– Bases of Python and Python Library for System Dynamics modeling (Carlos Ferreira, ISEP; Gionanni Zenezini, POLITO)

 •    Meeting 3: (12^th March) 7.0 p.m. (CET) (6.0p.m Portugal))– Data preparation, Modeling and validation  (Jesus Garcia, Jose Comesaña, Mar Fernandez, Iria Gonzalez, UVIGO)

•    Meeting 4: (16thMarch) 7.0 p.m. (CET) (6.0p.m Portugal))– ML methods in context ( Carlos Ferreira ISEP)

•    Meeting 5: (16^th April) 7.0 p.m. (CET) (6.0p.m Portugal))– System Dynamics in context (Giovanni, P. Torino)

•    Meeting 6: (23^th April) 7.0 p.m. (CET) (6.0p.m Portugal))–  Final pitch s(All partners - Bosch -Miguel Monteiro, Nelson Teresa Pereira, Jacques Bazen, Mark Schrooten, Bridget de Leijer , Marisa Pereira, Mar Fernandez, Iria Gonzalez, Jose Comesaña, Jesús García, Carlos Sá, Giovanni Zenezini

(12h+1- online– Fabruary/March/April) – 2 hours of self work in group online sessions between 2^nd March and 20^th April.

• Collaboration meeting 1: ((2nd March) 2026) 8.0 p.m. (CET) (7.0p.m Portugal))– Ice-breaking activity and introduction of the company challenge (to understand it) – Challenge Presentation by Bosch -Miguel Monteiro, Teresa Pereira, Jacques Bazen, Mark Schrooten, Mar Noguerol, Jose Comesaña, Iria Gonzalez, Jesus García, Marisa Oliveira,Carlos Sá, Gionanni Zenezini; Filippo Maria Ottaviani)
• Collaboration meeting 2: ((9^th March) 2026) 9.0 p.m. (CET) (8.0p.m Portugal))– To frame the challenge (mind map), and discuss about data collection, preparation and ML methods to apply  (ISEP/SAXION)).

• Collaboration meeting 3: (16^th March) 2026) 8.0 p.m. (CET) (7.0p.m Portugal))– Discussion about how to collect the data (primary and secondary), including literature review (Jesus Garcia, Jose Comesaña, Mar Fernandez, Iria Gonzalez, UVIGO, carlos Sá)

• Collaboration meeting 4: (30th March 2926) 8.0 p.m. (CET) (7.0p.m Portugal))– Data collation  and analysis  (Filippo Maria Ottaviani , P. Torino; Carlos Ferreira)

• Collaboration meeting 5: (13th april 2926) 8.0 p.m. (CET) (7.0p.m Portugal))– Do “How-might-we” solve the challenge analysis (list of possible options to be ranked) and define actions and select the most promising solutions based on the analytics  and develop the final report (Mark Schrooten, Marisa Guerra Pereira, Rafael Pedrosa)

• Collaboration meeting 6: (20tth april 2926) 8.0 p.m. (CET) (7.0p.m Portugal))– (after the physical mobility) – Preparation Final Pich presentation   ( Teresa Pereira, Jacques Bazen, Mark Schrooten, Sabine Overgoor, Marisa Guerra Pereira, Mar Fernandez, Iria Gonzalez, Jose Comesaña, Jesús García, Carlos Sá, Giovanni Zenezini) 
   

Besides these lectures, a weekly meeting of 2 h (total self work 30 hours)  should be  scheduled for  the students to work together online on the company challenge  using the ML and SD methods based on the divergent/convergent design thinking methodology.

The online classes will be followed by an online test, which will be made available for the students in due time. The test concerns the content of the previous online lectures.

Presential week – 23 March to 27 of March2026.

Monday
9.00h Official opening in the university with ice-breaking activity
10.00h Lecture “Welcome to Porto/Portugal”
11.00h Tour of the university to get to know around
12.30h Lunch break
13.30h Departure for a site visit and Lab site visit at the host company
14.30h Presentation of the company and site visit
16.30h Questions and answers
17.00h Departure from the company
18.00h Start of teambuilding evening/activity. Presentation of the home country by the Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Dutch students

Tuesday

09.00h Group work

11-12.30h  Individual EXAM (concerning Mondays online previous sessions)

12.30h Lunch break
14.00h Lecture provided by one of the experts  - Artificial Intelligence – Machine Learning methods in practics for Industrial management-INEGI.
15.00h Visit to INEGI  

16.00h Lecture Lecture provided by one of the experts - System Dynamics methods in practics for Industrial management-POLITO/INEGI
17.300h End of the work day

18.00h Global Village

Wednesday - Social day
09.00h Visit to Porto  - meeting Trindade  metro Station
10.00h Walk city tour

12.30h Lunch break
14.30h Visit to the traditional market
16.00h Virtudes terrace drink
17.00h End of the workday

Thursday

9.00h Online question session with the host company
10.00h Group work

12.30h Lunch break
14.30h Lecture provided by one of the experts in Machine Learning Causal methods
15.00h Group work

17.00h End of the workday

Friday

09.00h Preparation of the intermediate pitch
10.30h Intermediate presentations for the host company

13.00h Lunch break
14.30h Intermediate presentations for the host company
16.00h Closing ceremony with certificates

After the presential week, there will be an additional online session where students present the final version of their work, incorporating the latest feedback, and discuss the definitive results with all students, lecturers, and the company