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There is definite demand for research-driven cooperation between business and universities, according to a report out by the Finnish Research Impact Foundation in spring 2021. We got in touch with people working on FRIF-funded projects to find out more about the conditions and challenges of industry-academia cooperation and how best to finance this cooperation.

Most innovations that drive our society are based on new knowledge or new applications of existing knowledge. Knowledge creates business, which at its best generates money that can be used to produce new knowledge. This relationship of reciprocity is described at FRIF as the wheel of impact: this wheel continues to spin when business creates new research and vice versa. However, according to a report commissioned by the Finnish Research Impact Foundation in 2021, there remain major shortfalls in industry-academia cooperation in Finland.

“In the past ten years the focus of cooperation between business and universities in Finland has shifted towards so-called market-driven cooperation, whereas research-driven cooperation has taken something of a backseat,” says Mr Lauri Oksanen, Chairman of the FRIF Board.

Surveys by the Foundation show that in 2019, funding for market-driven research collaborations, i.e. projects launched in response to business initiatives, amounted to 130 million euros, which was allocated through Business Finland. Outside funding for research-driven cooperation initiated by universities and research institutes, on the other hand, totalled no more than two million euros. All that funding came from the Finnish Research Impact Foundation. “We’ve identified a clear gap in industry-academia cooperation and that gap must now be covered,” Lauri Oksanen says. PoDoCo (Post Docs in Companies) funding has blazed the trail in this field, providing opportunities for postdocs to tackle research questions that hold special interest for businesses.

FRIF Tandem Industry Academia funding is currently provided to 22 projects in which research teams from universities or research institutes and business companies are working closely on research questions that are of interest to both parties. Precompetitive funding is made available for basic or applied research, and it is intended to support projects whose impact extends beyond one single company or research team and that therefore contribute to the development of the wider field of study. The research results are made accessible to other companies as well, while the intellectual property rights remain with the research organization. In other words, the aim is not just to commercialize one research idea but to conduct research whose results can be scaled to the whole branch and that will advance both science and business.

Research-driven cooperation offers unique opportunities 

Polar Electro, a Finnish wearable sports technology company, is built around strong research expertise. In the 1970s professor Seppo Säynäjäkangas conducted early studies into wireless data transfer methods and biomeasurement and eventually went on to commercialize his findings. The first products were launched in the early 1980s, and today the company has a R&D department with a research staff of around 30. “Typically R&D units in companies will be focused on product development, with actual research in a fairly marginal role. In our case too, it’s fair to say that development takes precedence over research, but we still invest more in research than many other companies,” says Jyrki Schroderus, Director of Research and Technology at Polar Electro.

However, Schroderus is keen to stress that even an ambitious research programme does not remove the need for cooperation with universities. While business companies’ research and product development is always business-driven and focused on productization, joint projects with universities enable longer-term groundwork and basic research. “It’s impossible for us to assign a research team to study a single subject for five years when there’s no guarantee of success. Corporate research must be more output-oriented and involve less risks,” Schroderus says. 

Polar is currently engaged in two FRIF-funded projects with the University of Oulu. One area of interest is to develop a smart watches that can monitor various health data such as blood glucose levels from sweat.

“The good thing about this funding is that even though the results are openly accessible, the research question is formulated from the vantage-point of our business operation. This means the results will genuinely benefit us and not remain at too abstract a level,” Schroderus says.

Research benefits from having practical application

Working closely with a business partner provides a unique opportunity for the researcher to collect feedback and to discover new research questions. Postdoc researcher Tommi Jauhiainen from the Department of Digital Humanities at the University of Helsinki is working on a joint project to develop language identification techniques for the needs of language technology company Lingsoft. He started his research career in a similar business partnership, and he thoroughly appreciates engaging in university-driven research collaboration. For him, the key factor is that the results and the intellectual property rights from the research remain with the university and are accessible for use in other projects as well. “I wouldn’t work in joint projects if this were not the case.”

Jauhiainen has worked in the field of language identification methods for more than 10 years. Business cooperation provides an interface with the concrete world that can otherwise be hard to find in academia. “The business partner cannot be content with knowing that the technology works in theory. It also has to work in practice. I get feedback from every version I develop, and that helps me improve the technology further. This is the kind of work you’d never get done without a company that needs to put the technology to practical use.”

Jauhiainen feels that business cooperation goes to the very foundation of the impact of science and research. When that cooperation produces something that works and when the results are later made openly available, that can have a significant impact on the whole field of research. “Once the foundations are in place you can move much faster with developing applications,” he says. If the development of technologies such as language identification were left to companies alone, research would not make headway because companies will rarely give others access to their development outputs. This is another reason why Jauhiainen feels it’s important that cooperation is grounded in the interests of research.

Cooperation between business and universities remains rare in Finland 

A recent review commissioned by FRIF indicates that industry-academia cooperation has been on a downward trend over the past ten years. Finnish universities are getting less funding than before from private companies, and less than in the EU and OECD countries on average. This means that cooperation cannot depend on industry initiatives alone. “This situation cannot be solved by money alone. We also need to set up concrete funding mechanisms that encourage long-term cooperation,” Lauri Oksanen points out. FRIF is currently working to develop a new funding model alongside the Tandem Industry Academia programme. “We’re listening with a keen ear to signals coming from the field and aiming to create a funding instrument that will take the impact of science to the next level.”

FRIF has found that there is a special need to encourage collaboration between SMEs and universities. It has therefore started a separate review into the application of research knowledge in the SME field. Results from this work are expected during 2022. 

At Polar Electro, Jyrki Schroderus believes that cooperation is easier for companies that have existing networks in academia. “Without an understanding of the other side it’s difficult even to imagine what kind of cooperation is possible. Personal contacts make it easier to cross the threshold,” he says. Polar’s initial contact with the University of Oulu was an easy introduction because the circles are quite small in Oulu and most researchers now each other well. Schroderus believes another contributing factor is that he has a PhD himself and is familiar with the academic way of thinking.

This “academic literacy” is also reflected in Tommi Jauhiainen’s experiences of successful business cooperation. The people behind Lingsoft, the company with which he is working, are academics, as are Jauhiainen’s contacts in the company. Researchers, for their part, must also show an interest in the business company’s needs, Jauhiainen adds: “You don’t need to interfere in the business side, but it’s definitely beneficial for cooperation if you try to get as clear a picture as possible of how the company will be using the research results.”

The Finnish Research Impact Foundation will be live on Zoom every Monday at 11:00 am to 12:00 pm, from 7 through 21 March. The live sessions are dedicated to answering applicants’ questions regarding the TIA 2022 spring call. You can send your questions in advance using this form. The Foundation’s CEO Petro Poutanen will be available to answer your questions.

Join us on Zoom! Link to Zoom Q&A sessions. Mondays 11:00 am – 12:00 pm from 7 to 21 March 2022.

Professor Keijo Hämäläinen, Rector of the University of Jyväskylä, has joined the Board of the Finnish Research Impact Foundation as of 1 January 2022. He has previously served as Chairman of Universities Finland UNIFI and is currently a board member of the Finnish Cultural Foundation and the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra.

Keijo Hämäläinen has held several positions of trust both within and outside of academia. He was appointed Rector of the University of Jyväskylä in 2017, having previously served as Vice Rector at the University of Helsinki. Hämäläinen comes from a background of international physics research, and he has also been honoured for his teaching. So what is his relation to doing science?

“I’m a researcher by background as well as in terms of my thinking, and science has always been my passion. The rector’s role is one of an academic leader who must have a practical understanding of how research is done. Science and research lies at the heart of everything at university,” he says.

The Finnish Research Impact Foundation was set up by the Finnish government in 2019 to increase the impact of research and to strengthen partnerships between academia and industry. What thoughts does Keijo Hämäläinen have about the impact of science?

“You have to let science evolve under its own gravitation, but impact must not be considered an obstacle. From science’s viewpoint, progress in research is the most important impact. The results and outputs of research are then the outside impacts on the rest of society. The challenges we’re facing in the world today are so momentous that I feel science has a moral obligation to address them and to make an impact. Besides, they are all exciting and interesting scientific challenges in their own right,” Hämäläinen continues.

A report commissioned by FRIF in 2021 showed that cooperation between academia and industry in Finland has been on a downward trend over the past decade. There’s a growing drive now to turn things around: one important tool to this end is the national RDI roadmap adopted by the Ministerial Working Group on Competence, Education, Culture and Innovation. How does the Rector of the University of Jyväskylä see the state of cooperation between universities and business in Finland today?

“Finnish business and industry certainly values and appreciates the work and research we’re doing at our universities and recognizes the importance of basic research. The higher up we move in the business hierarchy, the greater the recognition of the different but complementary roles of academia and industry in producing new innovations. But of course there’s always room for improvement in the dialogue, for instance by learning what’s happening in each world and what’s most important,” Hämäläinen says.

“Some research questions are more relevant to industry than they are to academia, and finding answers to these questions can offer a fast track to achieving impact. Other questions will require a longer time window to open up research paths that can pave the way to relevant advances in science. The scales are not always aligned,” Hämäläinen continues.

FRIF’s role is to support dialogue and to promote impact. Professor Hämäläinen has a clear view of how substantial impact can be achieved.

“In essence it’s all about skilled and competent people. We must get the best talents to commit themselves to science and research and to the application of cutting edge research. Whenever there is impact to be achieved, we must have access to the means to promote that impact. Research collaborations with industry are not a secondary alternative,” Hämäläinen says.

A seat on the FRIF Board became vacant following the rotational retirement of former Vice Rector of Tampere University, Juha Teperi, who did not seek a second term on the Board. The Board of the Finnish Research Impact Foundation consulted Universities Finland UNIFI, one of the background organizations involved in founding FRIF, to request nominations for new Board members. The FRIF Board appointed Keijo Hämäläinen to the vacant Board seat on 13 December 2021, and he started his first three-year term on 1 January 2022. Under the foundation’s current rules, Board members can serve a maximum of two consecutive terms.

As 2021 is drawing to a close it’s a good time to briefly take stock of the past year and to look forward to what the future will bring.

In spring 2021 FRIF opened the second round of the Tandem Industry Academia call for proposals. As before, we received a huge number of quality applications for projects supporting and promoting the impact of joint industry-academia collaborations. FRIF awarded funding to 11 new joint projects. In October, the Board of the Finnish Research Impact Foundation decided to open the third call for applications in spring 2022.

In early 2021 we also came out with FRIF’s first report on the state and funding of industry-academia cooperation in Finland. The report immediately prompted lively debate that continued throughout the autumn. Later in the year the Parliamentary RDI Working Group submitted its proposal for a legislative act to increase funding for research and development. At the same time, a new updated version was released of the RDI Roadmap that was published in spring 2020 to create a more attractive environment and stronger incentives for long-term cooperation between academia, business and industry, and RDI professionals. These steps are critical in a climate of toughening international RDI competition.

During 2021 the FRIF Board also announced its new strategy for the 2022–2024 term. The strategy is built around the Finnish Research Impact Foundation’s core mission, which is to improve Finnish knowledge and expertise by supporting research excellence and by developing new, impact-enhancing forms of cooperation between industry and academic research.

In other words, FRIF is not a research funding agency in the most conventional sense of the term, but it is keen to find and explore new creative avenues. Unlike larger players that can sometimes be slow and cumbersome in their movement, FRIF has the agility to develop and test out new avenues and solutions. Our focus will be shifting towards identifying funding gaps and bottlenecks in order to find novel solutions through funding experiments, for instance. In 2022, we plan to engage our stakeholders more closely in this development process.

We also have plans in place to conduct further assessments and investigations – from a slightly different angle than before. Moreover, at the start of 2022, there will be a new board personnel joining our team – but more on these will follow later.

A warm thank you for your cooperation during the past year and all the best for the future!

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

On behalf of the Foundation,
Petro Poutanen, CEO

The Board of the Finnish Research Impact Foundation decided at its meeting on 21 October 2021 to open the third Tandem Industry Academia funding call in spring 2022. The previous calls in 2020 and 2021 have met with a very positive reception, attracting 92 and 80 applications, respectively. In both years FRIF awarded a total of two million euros in funding to 11 projects.

There are 22 ongoing or soon-to-be-launched FRIF-funded research projects involving Finnish universities or research institutes and business partners. In these two-year TIA projects a postdoc researcher works for one year with the academic organization and the other year with the partner company.

The next, third round of calls in spring 2022 will be announced in the Foundation’s newsletter and through its social media channels. Subscribe to our newsletter by joining our mailing list at the bottom of the front page of our website so you will always stay up to date on new funding calls and other information from the Finnish Research Impact Foundation.

Infrared sensors have several important areas of application, such as in medical imaging, data communications, robotic cars and dark vision. Launched in 2020 with funding from the Finnish Research Impact Foundation FRIF, Superior infrared sensors is a two-year project where researchers from Aalto University are working closely with business partner ElFys to develop a new type of highly sensitive infrared sensor.

The project brings together the expertise of Aalto researchers on nanomaterials such as black silicon and the business partner’s know-how in components manufacturing and production. Pooling resources and expertise is an effective route to achieving challenging goals, but the success of the project also depends on how well the two partners work together.

Together with Mr Antti Haarahiltunen, project coordinator and supervisor at ElFys, the project’s Principal Investigator, Associate Professor Hele Savin and postdoc researcher Toni Pasanen from the Aalto Department of Electronics and Nanoengineering offer some useful pointers on how to make the most of Tandem Industry Academia collaborations.

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Get the right people in the right places

Tandem Industry Academia (TIA) projects provide a unique framework for building strong and productive collaboration between academic researchers and business partners. The key lies in getting the right people in the right places.

“I’d invest a lot to ensure that you get the right people to carry the project forward. The postdoc researcher has a pivotal role which differs significantly from what you’ll see in purely academic projects, for instance. It’s crucial that your postdoc researcher is motivated both by the research subject and by the prospect of working in an industrial environment,” says Associate Professor Hele Savin from Aalto University.

In addition to a Principal Investigator and postdoc researcher, TIA projects are to appoint an Industrial Supervisor representing the business partner and organization.

“The supervisor must be committed and devoted to working on the theme of the project but should also have an interest in doing academic research. This is because the TIA project involves close cooperation with the university and in that sense differs from regular in-house product development projects,” says postdoc researcher Toni Pasanen.

“For the Industrial Supervisor it’s definitely a plus to have experience of academic projects, both from the point of view of setting realistic goals and time use in general,” Mr Haarahiltunen adds.

Cooperation pays dividends, from the very outset

All plans submitted for TIA projects are required to include a preliminary schedule for the project where working hours are evenly allocated between the business company and the university.

“Our initial plan was for Toni to spend his first project year at the university and the second year with the business partner, but this didn’t work out as we had anticipated,” Savin says.

“We soon realized it would be much more useful if we had access to the expertise and hardware available at the business partner from the very outset. That’s why I’ve spent quite a surprising amount of time working with the company as soon as we got underway,” Pasanen says.

“I’d advise against setting down a very strict timetable. The stage of the research process may also influence the decision on whether it makes more sense to work at the university or with the company,” he continues.

Lay down the ground rules as early as possible

In any joint research project it’s important to agree on a set of ground rules concerning any immaterial rights created in the course of the project and the preparation of publications, for instance.

“We have a written agreement on immaterial rights between the university and the business partner,” Savin says.

“There are lots of practical things that you should agree upon in advance, such as communications, data sharing, timetables and the use of company equipment or other resources, but it’s also important to specify what’s regarded as confidential information and business secrets for the company: you need to cover these issues before the researcher has conducted any experiments and submitted the first scientific article for review. This will help to avoid any awkward situations arising later,” Pasanen adds.

“From the business partner’s point of view I think publishing is always a good idea, so long as the process of protecting any potentially innovative elements has been properly started,” Haarahiltunen continues.

Prepare for the post-project era

Every project will eventually come to an end. The TIA projects funded in the first and second rounds in 2020 and 2021 are scheduled to run for two years. Although the postdoc researcher in every TIA project is on the university’s payroll, it’s good to talk about what kind of future expectations the project creates for the business partner.

Associate Professor Hele Savin is keen to stress the importance of considering the postdoc researcher’s role in relation to the company once the project is completed, and doing this as early as possible: “Will the researcher be in the same position as other company employees? Is the company possibly looking to hire the researcher?”

“It’s good if the postdoc researcher gets to work as part of the team in the business partner’s organization, rather than limiting his or her interaction to communications with the supervisor in the company. It will help the researcher gain a clearer picture of what else the company is doing and what it’s like to work in the company. And this, in turn, will help to form a clearer picture of the post-project era,” Toni Pasanen says.

Antti Haarahiltunen shares a similar view:

“After the project the postdoc researcher will hopefully have a positive impression of the company and, if the situation’s right, will want to join the company. This will be more likely if during the course of the project he or she has the opportunity to see close up how the company works,” he explains. 

Maintaining close relations with the business partner is also important from the university’s point of view.

“It good to talk about how the two parties can continue their collaboration once the project is completed,” Savin says.

“It’s unlikely this research subject will be exhausted in two short years, so the collaboration can probably continue,” Haarahiltunen concludes.

Superior infrared sensors is a joint research project between Aalto University and ElFys. The project received two-year funding from the Finnish Research Impact Foundation in 2020. Click here for more information on FRIF-funded projects.