DOIT project (2017–2020) specifically targeted entrepreneurial skills for young social innovators through maker movement and open digital world approaches.
COC OFFICE AS
Danish company bringing maker education, youth entrepreneurship, and out-of-classroom science learning into pan-European research consortia.
Their core work
COC OFFICE AS is a Danish private company based in Billund — Denmark's creative learning capital and home of the LEGO Group — that works at the intersection of maker education, youth entrepreneurship, and experiential science learning. Their EU project contributions focus on developing practical, hands-on approaches that equip young people with entrepreneurial and social innovation skills through digital making and open, collaborative environments. They have also contributed to projects connecting formal science curricula with out-of-classroom learning experiences, indicating expertise in non-formal education design and youth engagement. As a private company contributing to society-oriented research consortia, they likely bring a practitioner or industry perspective rather than academic research capacity.
What they specialise in
SySTEM 2020 (2018–2021) focused on connecting science learning to out-of-school environments across Europe.
DOIT framed entrepreneurship explicitly within social innovation, targeting young people as agents of community change.
Both projects share a philosophy of learning beyond formal classroom settings, suggesting a consistent methodological thread across their EU work.
How they've shifted over time
Their first project, DOIT (starting 2017), was firmly rooted in the maker movement — equipping young people with entrepreneurial and social innovation skills through digital fabrication and open creative environments. Their second project, SySTEM 2020 (starting 2018), broadened toward connecting science learning with out-of-school experiences, dropping the maker/entrepreneurship framing in favour of wider science engagement. The shift is subtle but consistent: from a specific maker-movement identity toward a broader experiential learning and science education positioning.
COC OFFICE AS appears to be broadening from a maker-education niche toward general experiential science learning, which could position them as partners for STEM engagement or science communication projects beyond the maker movement.
How they like to work
COC OFFICE AS has participated exclusively as a consortium member in both projects — never in a coordinating role — suggesting they bring specialist or practitioner knowledge to larger research efforts rather than driving research programs independently. Despite only two projects, they have accumulated 34 unique partners across 22 countries, indicating they join large, multi-partner pan-European consortia. This points to an organization valued for a specific applied expertise that complements academic partners, not one seeking to lead research agendas.
With 34 unique consortium partners across 22 countries from just 2 projects, COC OFFICE AS has a disproportionately broad European network relative to their research volume, reflecting participation in large, diverse EU initiatives. No particular geographic concentration is evident from the available data.
What sets them apart
COC OFFICE AS occupies an unusual position in EU-funded education research: a private company — not a university or NGO — contributing practitioner expertise on maker education and youth entrepreneurship from Billund, a town globally associated with creative and play-based learning. Their combination of maker culture, social innovation, and non-formal science learning gives them a differentiated profile among the many academic institutions that dominate society-pillar consortia. For coordinators building projects around youth engagement, education innovation, or science communication, they offer the credibility of a company with applied, real-world connections to these areas rather than purely theoretical research.
Highlights from their portfolio
- DOITTheir largest project by funding (EUR 44,097) and the most thematically distinctive, combining the maker movement with youth social entrepreneurship in a pan-European initiative across 9 countries.
- SySTEM 2020Demonstrates their reach into broader science education policy, connecting classroom science with out-of-school informal learning environments at a European scale.