Insights

The European Commission has announced the first results of its new SME Instrument, launched under Horizon 2020 to help innovative small- or medium-sized companies get their ideas to the market. Aurelia Turbines Oy is one of the Finnish SME’s to receive funding from a highly competitive field of innovative European companies from which funding was granted for fewer than 6% of the applicants. Spinverse Oy assisted Aurelia Turbines in selecting the most suitable funding instrument and helped to prepare the application.

"All the other decision-makers or members of the executive teams of companies are getting awards --- but nobody awarded the CTO", says Pekka Koponen, CEO of Spinverse on a video interview, recorded at the Annual Conference of EIRMA.

Over 60 experts from industry met the European Commission and research representatives to share experiences about nano-enabled innovations, future markets, framework and investment needs.

The CTO Forum Finland event is again organised to enable Finnish technology leaders to meet each other and to hear the latest news within the Finnish technology scene in October 2014.

Many large corporations in Europe are going through a time of transformation. Economic circumstances drive corporations to reduce non-core activities and to seek more dynamic R&D networks to meet the future market needs. This is an opportunity for entrepreneurs.

Column in Kauppalehti by Pekka Koponen, May, 2014

The Industrial Technologies conference was organised for the third time in April 2014. The event took place in Athens during the Greek Presidency of the European Council, and gave an outlook to European and global developments and latest innovations in the fields of nano and biotechnology, advanced materials, and new production technologies. It was a tremendous success with over 1,300 participants from more than 60 countries around the world.  Spinverse had an important role as one of the main co-organisers of the event.

Spinverse and EIRMA, the European Industrial Research Management Association, have announced that they will launch the quest for Europe’s CTO of the Year 2014 in June. The CTO of the Year Award is to highlight the role of the most prominent leaders of technology-based growth, promoting innovations to renew European industry and to upturn competitive advantage.

FIMECC research programmes have already proven their strength as target-oriented public-private partnerships (PPP), capable of creating new solutions and implementing results effectively. Now a new wave of intensive research cooperation between academia and industry is brought alive through an industry-led FIMECC Breakthrough Materials Doctoral School. Built as a part of the FIMECC BSA and HYBRIDS programmes launched in the beginning of 2014, it will involve 22 doctoral students in its first phase. Focusing on fundamental scientific challenges and modelling, this multi-disciplinary group of young scientists with their senior advisors and international partners will tackle critical research questions set by the companies involved to build new solutions and relevant competence for the industry.