An 'acceleration lane' lasting one or two months offers a smooth start to collaboration between business life and researchers. Participation does not bind the company to anything but can possibly lead to a multi-million euro project.
The University of Helsinki will facilitate collaboration between business life and researchers right from the beginning of 2025 by launching a new service called R&D Accelerator. It invites businesses to engage in dialogue on how research in various fields can help them develop their business operations.
The aim of the accelerator is to increase research-based collaboration between companies and researchers, thus solving global problems, promoting sustainable business growth and reshaping society. The increasing dialogue between business life and researchers is made possible by the Finnish government´s RDI investments.
"Now that the government has allocated more RDI funding to us, we wish to speed up the start of cooperation," says Pia Dolivo, Head of the Community Relations unit at the University of Helsinki.
The idea behind the accelerator is simple: the participating company outlines a critical challenge in its business operations for which it is seeking new perspectives. The University brings together researchers from fields relevant to specific challengens to consider how science and research can help in identifying solutions. Finally, a collaboration plan will be drawn up around the best idea. This acceleration lane may lead to projects of various sizes - at best to a research project worth millions of euros.
"Funding can be sought, for example, from Business Finland or the European Union," says Dolivo.
Effortlessness as the strong point of the new service
Participation in R&D Accelerator is free and does not bind your business to any follow-up projects. However, there are many potential benefits: representatives of the company can acquaint themselves with scholars interested in collaboration and receive a view of the research that will be key to solving their challenges.
"They will gain many insights into what should be taken into consideration."
R&D Accelerator is facilitated by the University's business collaboration team. Joining the accelerator is easy when the steps are laid in advance.
"We ensure that both businesses and researchers understand each other's needs, goals and practices," says Dolivo.
The new service makes it easy to test whether interesting research partners could be found in the University's multidisciplinary community. Potential precursors for collaboration are formed in one to two months, and the final decision on how to benefit from the R&D Accelerator lies with the company.
Multidisciplinary solutions to wicked problems
Even at present, the University of Helsinki is looking for innovative answers to many challenges in cooperation with business life. For example, researchers have joined forces with companies such as KONE and Elisa to promote sustainable urbanisation - data on people flow may be useful for companies wanting to optimise their services or the energy consumption of buildings.
At the same time, the ambitious FinnGen project, involving a large group of international pharmaceutical giants, provides tools for boosting drug development. And recently, the University alongside OP Financial Group began producing groundbreaking information on the financial skills of young people .
"Both our current partners and businesses that do not yet know the University of Helsinki that well will be very welcome at R&D Accelerator," Says Dolivo.
