Maker EventVULCA Seminar 2026
The Vulca Seminar is the annual gathering of Vulca, the European Makerspaces Union, and in 2026 it comes to Spain for the first time, hosted at the Museo de las Ciencias de Castilla-La Mancha in the historic old town of Cuenca with support from the FabLab Cuenca team. Since 2017 the seminar has brought together more than 480 makers from over 20 countries, and this edition turns on a single question, how the professionalisation of the maker movement can help build a more resilient Europe. Three values run through the week, connect, repair and create: strengthening the networks that hold the movement together, extending the life of what we make rather than only building new, and using STEAM as a driver for useful innovation.
The programme runs in three movements. We'R Back, on the Monday and Tuesday, is for Vulca members, with a general assembly and working sessions that set the year's direction alongside slower formats such as the Human Library that keep a community spread across twenty countries genuinely connected. We'R Together, from Wednesday to Friday morning, is open to everyone and is where professionalisation gets concrete: participants bring a project, framed in advance through pre-event sessions, and carry it through four professional sessions to leave with it structured, partnered and ready to fund, while community-built discovery sessions offer an open, hands-on route for anyone arriving without a project. Friday morning turns collective, with a working session to form consortia for the next round of European funding calls. We'Repair closes the week on Friday afternoon, open to the people of Cuenca, with the We Repair Project turning the week's argument into practice by fixing things and extending their life.
The main seminar runs from 11 to 13 November 2026, with members' days from 9 November. Non-member early bird tickets are 150 euros and members pay what they want, with every ticket including the pre-event project sessions. Twenty travel grants are open to Vulca members, up to 200 euros for accommodation and 175 for travel, awarded on need and involvement in the network.
