U Grow Academy

U Grow Academy is a Bulgarian training and organisational consulting academy. We design and implement training programmes and workshops that help diverse groups of people work together, solve complex challenges and turn ideas into action. Our clients and partners come from the public, private and NGO sectors, and we bring this experience to EU-funded projects that depend on real stakeholder participation and actionable results.

Our services for EU projects

1. Stakeholder engagement and co-creation workshops
   We design and facilitate multi-actor workshops that bring together public institutions, businesses, NGOs, researchers, educators, farmers and citizens. Each process is tailored to the project's objectives, so that every session delivers concrete outputs: shared visions, mapped barriers, prioritised solutions, policy recommendations and commitments to act.

2. Innovation and complex problem-solving
   We create frameworks and facilitate design thinking sessions, foresight and scenario workshops, hackathons and challenge labs. These formats help participants explore future scenarios, assess opportunities and risks of emerging technologies, and co-design practical solutions to shared challenges.

3. Training programme design and delivery
   We develop and deliver training programmes on stakeholder management, innovation, complex problem-solving, co-creation, leadership and collaboration. We design complete learning journeys for different target groups and seniority levels, using our Awareness-Action-Adoption framework to ensure that participants not only understand new concepts but apply them in their everyday work.

4. Stakeholder mapping and engagement strategies
   We support consortia in identifying, analysing and prioritising stakeholders, and in building engagement strategies that keep them involved throughout the project lifecycle.

5. Toolkits and train-the-trainer programmes
   We translate our workshop frameworks into facilitator toolkits, guidelines and training materials, so that methodologies can be replicated by consortium partners in other countries. Through our membership in international facilitator communities, we can also recommend trained facilitators for other markets.

6. Pilot implementation and insight reports
   We run pilot workshops and trainings, document the process and results, and deliver reports with insights, best practices and recommendations that feed into project deliverables.

Our methodologies

• Pro.Play®: we are certified facilitators and the only academy in Bulgaria using this play-based methodology. 3D modelling makes complex systems, processes and ideas visible and easy to discuss, even among participants from very different backgrounds.

• Liberating Structures: our team is part of the global Liberating Structures community. These 33+ simple, adaptable methods ensure inclusive participation, distributed leadership and collective intelligence in groups of any size.

• Design thinking, foresight and co-design approaches, combined into custom frameworks for each project's topic and expected outcomes.

Our strengths

• Strong expertise in working with cross-cultural, intergenerational and multidisciplinary groups

• Experience across the public, private and NGO sectors, with organisations ranging from start-ups to corporations with 1,000 employees

• Proven results in EU-funded initiatives, including in agri-food, digital technologies and innovation

• A team with international experience in Bulgaria, the UK, Serbia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Lithuania, and more than 2,000 people trained

Selected projects

• Circular Voices (Bulgaria and Spain), with AgriVentures: a co-creation workshop with 30+ farmers, agrifood start-ups, researchers and consultants that documented 13 circular practices, mapped 54 systemic barriers and delivered five policy recommendations. Recognised at the IAF Facilitation Impact Awards 2026.

• SAFE-AGRI (REINFORCING project), with AgriVentures: a foresight and co-creation session on the opportunities, risks and dual-use potential of AI, drones, robotics and sensors in agriculture, feeding the SAFE-AGRI ORRI-based Governance Toolkit.

• Bulgaria's largest women's leadership academy, an initiative of the Bulgarian Council of Women in Business, which we support.

• Bulgaria's first Team Leader and Operations Management programmes, and internal management and leadership academies for corporate clients.

Where we fit in a consortium
We are looking to join consortia in Horizon Europe, Erasmus+, Digital Europe and other EU programmes as a partner responsible for stakeholder engagement, co-creation, training and capacity building. Our methods work in any field where diverse people need to collaborate, including agri-food, digital transformation and emerging technologies, education and skills, and social innovation.