The Barça Innovation Hub – the platform that manages FC Barcelona’s research, innovation and training projects – continues to generate interest in the world of knowledge and business. Over the coming weeks, the Barça Innovation Hub will be the object of study and analysis in the fourth edition of the Creativity for Business Innovation Challenge (C4Bi), a student competition that promotes the use of creative process auditing, a tool used by chef Ferran Adrià and his team to evaluate innovation processes at his world-renowned restaurant, elBulli.

The C4Bi forms part of ESADE’s Student First educational model, which is based on experiential leaning and direct contact with the reality of organisations. It offers a unique opportunity for students to experiment with a new methodology developed to promote a better understanding of processes.

Creative process auditing is a tool that can be applied to any company, organisation, or institution for the purpose of evaluating creativity and innovation processes. With the Barça Innovation Hub as the protagonist of this year’s C4Bi, the competition will be open to three-person teams of students in ESADE’s Master of Business Administration (MBA), Masters of Science (MSc), Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) and Double Degree (BBA + Bachelor in Law). Students from international universities and business schools such as Denmark’s Copenhagen Business School and Finland’s Aalto University will also be welcome to compete.

The interest generated by the participation of elBullifoundation, ESADE and FC Barcelona sparked a wave of applications to participate in the C4Bi. Sixty-seven three-student teams and seven two-student teams, representing a total of 41 countries, have applied to take part in this year’s competition. A panel of experts will analyse the studies submitted by the teams and select those which will advance to the final round on 22nd, 23rd and 24th November.

The finalists will visit LABulliografia, where Ferran Adrià will give a talk and present the creative process auditing methodology. The teams will also visit the facilities of FC Barcelona, where they will share their strategies with various executives and managers from the Barça Innovation Hub. Finally, the student teams will have 10 hours to complete a creative process audit of the Barça Innovation Hub and prepare their conclusions and initiatives, which they will present before a panel of judges consisting of Josep Franch, Dean of ESADE Business School, Javier Sobrino, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at FC Barcelona, and Ferran Adrià himself.

The aim of this collaboration between elBullifoundation and ESADE – now in its fourth edition – is to transfer the creative process auditing technique to innovation processes in companies and institutions. In the first edition of the C4Bi, participants carried out a creative process audit of the Roca Group’s W+W project. In the second edition, they analysed Hospital Sant Joan de Déu de Barcelona. Finally, in the third edition, they audited HP Latex’s large-format printing technology for interior design and decoration.

FC Barcelona President Josep Maria Bartomeu met with Ferran Adrià, Josep Franch, Dean of ESADE Business School, Òscar Grau, CEO and Executive Director of FC Barcelona, and Javier Sobrino, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at FC Barcelona, to learn first-hand about this collaboration project and the involvement of the Barça Innovation Hub, which is one of the club’s strategic projects.

“We are very proud that elBullifoundation and ESADE choose the Barça Innovation Hub to be a subject of creative process auditing,” commented FC Barcelona President Josep Maria Bartomeu. “We are very interested in this because it will show us just how much our project has evolved. This is an international project that combines technology, academics and the world of sports, with an eye to the future.”

Chef Ferran Adrià commented: “It’s very important for an organisation like Barça to be committed to innovation. This project will help the club understand what’s being done now and what it should do in the future. We have to understand that innovation can be found in any facet of a company.”

“We encourage our students to apply the creative process auditing technique that we have developed with Ferran Adrià in the context of a company or an organisation,” commented Josep Franch, Dean of ESADE Business School. “This year, we are very excited to work with an internationally renowned club like Barça – a tremendously powerful brand with very creative and innovative management.”