Fyrklövern – Sweden’s unique Innovation Office
Society faces great challenges and meeting those challenges requires research, innovation and collaboration. This is where we come in. Four universities – one innovation office. This creates a breadth of ideas and skills that makes Innovation Office Fyrklövern unique.
You do not solve social challenges alone - we do it together
Fyrklövern has established itself as one of Sweden’s leading innovation offices. The explanation for its success lies in the joint innovation process. Each node within Fyrklövern has different strengths, which complement the whole. If one of the four universities lacks the expertise to pursue an idea, then the others can quickly offer support. In fact, the collaboration goes much further than just innovation advice. Within Fyrklövern, expertise is shared in everything from student and alumni collaboration, research support, business law, finance and communication. This makes Fyrklövern a unique player.
How we create opportunities for more ideas to benefit society
Many people have innovative ideas, but are unsure if there is a real need for their idea in society. That assessment is important, but often costs money - which means that many people never take their idea further. To remedy the situation, Vinnova has set up a verification programme that gives the innovation offices the opportunity to distribute funds to potential innovators. Within Fyrklövern, this is done through a joint ‘verification council’, where innovation advisors assess current ideas and cases, and then decide on the allocation of verification funds. In this way, we open up the possibility of more ideas and research results being utilised.
We give future researchers the right tools to change the world
Unfortunately, it is all too common for research results with potential societal benefits to remain confined within academia. Fyrklövern wants to change that. One way is by educating our future researchers. Every year, Fyrklövern delivers the course ‘Impact and the Utilisation of Research’ (4.5 credits), in which doctoral students from the Fyrklövern universities learn how to transform research ideas into concrete societal benefits. In this course, we show the doctoral students how they can create wider impact and build meaningful networks, how to formulate a research pitch, and how they can identify funders and protect their ideas. With this knowledge, the researchers of the future can also become the innovators of the future.
