Knowledge transfer leads to innovation

Previous knowledge triangle projects have concentrated only on engineering and technology, while the humanities, art and design have had more difficulty in presenting values and practical aspects in a way that would attract the interest of businesses and sponsors. Halina Gottlieb has been project manager for one of the networks in the Knowledge Triangle, called Culture Kick, and has also acted as the co-ordinator between the networks in the region. She has high expectations for the results of the mix of knowledge the Nordic Council of Ministers is focusing on here.

"The goal in the network Culture Kick has been to breathe life into Nordic cultural heritage in a new and effective way, through using the results from design research and ICT, i.e. digital information and communication technology", says Gottlieb.

"Since academic writing is difficult to understand we have, e.g., created different tools which make it easier for researchers to present their result in a way that is easy to understand. We have made handbooks with specific examples, we have built a digital platform with video presentations and we have arranged congresses. We would not have been able to do any of this without the funding from the Nordic Council of Ministers.

Challenges on the road ahead

Professor Bent Egberg Mikkelsen from Aalborg University has run one of the Sino-Nordic networks, "Food4Growth". He is also pleased with the results so far, but reminds that there are many obstacles on the road before they can be put into practice.

"We have developed a prototype of what we call a food monitoring system, DIMS, for hospitals. DIMS controls what the patients eat, and more importantly, what they do not eat. It keeps track of how varied the individual patient's food is, how often she eats. DIMS is also a tool that can be used to prevent food waste. We know that there is a great need for our product, both in the Nordic countries and in China. The problem at the moment is that we only have a prototype that does not have any tangible benefits.

"I am just a simple professor", says Mikkelsen. The challenge now is to turn our research into money, to get out into the market - and that is not my area of expertise. What is needed if we are to move forward is, amongst other things, experts in commercialisation, in marketing and intellectual property law. To become established in China we also need experts in the cultural differences between China and the Nordic countries.

One of the challenges that the networks are explicitly facing is funding of the work in the long-term. The universities are often conservative and have difficulty accepting the benefits of entrepreneur skills and commercialisation of research results, which is becoming increasingly important.

The Knowledge Triangle project has proved that there is a great under-utilised potential in the Nordic countries and between the region and the rest of the world. Amongst the researchers there is great interest to broaden the network projects in Europe and in the rest of the world with funding from the EU also, and the Nordic Council of Ministers has responded favourably to this idea.