At Linköping university, a model to facilitate impact and bridge the gap between research, education, and business creation, has been developed. It is named “ComICIR”, which stands for Commercialization of Innovative Challenges from Industry and Research. The model allows researchers, firms, and students to work in a co-creation process that are built on the following five steps: (1) research validation, (2) idea generation, (3) idea validation, (4) idea evaluation and, (5) innovation strategy. In the paper, we describe the model and analyse how challenges and ideas could be developed and experientially based pedagogical approaches could be adjusted in order to benefit the regional ecosystem of research, education and industry and contribute to reaching increased impact of innovative ideas and ventures. Our main finding is that CBL is beneficial but requires close cooperation between teachers and innovation support actors. Flexibility is needed to fit the purpose of the course as well as the needs of the challenge providers. Hence, challenges need to be categorized and qualified to take into account the aim and scope of the challenge as well as its degree of development as this affects how the challenges should be written and treated to get the best outcome.