Insights

Year 2020 has featured the starting point of a remarkable 10-year European investment into innovative low carbon projects. The European Commission has successfully launched the Innovation Fund, which is expected to provide over 10 B€ of grants between 2020-2030 for upscaling innovative clean technologies. The funding comes from revenues from the auction of emission allowances within the EU’s Emissions Trading System. 

Solving the critical environmental and societal challenge of recycling ever-growing piles of discarded textiles is the goal of the New Cotton Project. New Cotton will demonstrate the production of high-performing circular textiles and launch them to the consumer markets. The core of the solution is Infinited Fiber Company’s new innovative technology, which is an affordable and environmentally sustainable way to turn textile waste into cotton-like fibres with superior qualities. Spinverse funding experts helped secure EU Horizon 2020 funding for this exciting 8.9 M€ project, where Infinited Fiber Company acts as the project lead.

Since its launch in 2017, Spinverse has been an active facilitator for the partners of CleverHealth Network that develops top-class health tech solutions to solve clinical challenges to support patients, care personnel and clinical researchers. eCare for Me is one of the subprojects of the ecosystem where Helsinki University Hospital (HUS) nephrologist Virpi Rauta and HUS Chief researcher and Head physician Kimmo Porkka lead their respective research activities together with a group of clinicians, technology companies and university researchers. We asked Virpi and Kimmo how the projects are progressing.

Business Finland has granted a total of 60 M€ for three new ecosystem projects led by the leading "Veturi" companies. In return for Business Finland's funding, the leading companies have committed to increase their research, development and innovation (R&D&I) activities in Finland by a total of hundreds of millions of euros, at the same time creating hundreds of new R&D&I jobs by 2024. These new ecosystem projects are led by ABB, KONE and Sandvik.

With the Horizon 2020 programme about to end, the proposed 100 B€ successor programme Horizon Europe will soon commence. Many organisations have already started planning and improving their internal processes to be more pro-active regarding the upcoming opportunities. While we are all waiting for more news on the progress of Horizon Europe, we are excited to announce the release of the newest features in our Spinbase to provide you with even better support in finding the right EU funding calls or partners for your project.

Technology Industries of Finland, The Chemical Industry Federation of Finland, Finnish Forest Industries and Business Finland are arranging, together with Spinverse and VTT, a series of webinars on Horizon Europe programme and Innovation Fund. The first webinar is held on 3rd December, 2020 at 9 – 12.30 (EET). Among the speakers is our Managing Director Laura Koponen, and our health sector expert Riikka Paasikivi will be facilitating one of the parallel sessions on the themes of four Horizon Europe Clusters in the first Work Programs. 

Spinverse team recently got together to shortly meet up with most of the colleagues face-to-face (keeping a safe distance). We wanted to raise a toast to this year’s successes and most of all, to our Consultant Vilja Vara, who reached a milestone of 10 years with Spinverse this autumn.

The bi-annual CTO Forum, co-organised by Technology Industries of Finland, Business Finland and Spinverse, was held on 10 November as a virtual event as most of the events at the moment. The overarching theme was "Leading green and digital growth" . The keynotes and workgroups made the online event alive with interesting discussions and insights of the relevant topics in technology industries. The preliminary results of the recent CTO Survey were also covered in the event. What is more, the nomination period for the CTO of the year 2021 was opened! 

The event was kicked off with the opening words from Pekka Koponen from Spinverse, Nina Kopola from Business Finland and Jaakko Hirvola from Technology Industries from Finland. The keynotes were given by CTOs of the Year 2020, Aki Mäkivirta from Genelec and Jani Vilenius from Sandvik. Aki and Jani discussed in concrete examples about the changes the Covid-19 situation brought to their companies and the message was clear - we need to be able to renew and find new ways to work. 

The workgroups discussed and shared their ideas on the following five thematic groups: 

• Increasing investments – How to drive investments and R&D in Finland
• Driving growth – How to succeed in internationalisation and enhancing exports?
• Building cooperation – How to build and operate R&D&I ecosystems?
• Boosting business – How to utilise innovation and investment funding?
• Building competences – How to attract new and needed talents?   

At the end of the event, the nominations of the CTO of the Year 2021 was officially launched open. Do you already have a candidate in mind? If yes, read below how to nominate your candidate! 

Have you worked with an exceptional CTO in Finland? We are now looking for nominations to find the CTO who makes the biggest impact in bringing the best out of their team, is an inspiring leader and adds significant value to the company through technology.

Who is eligible? Anyone who is responsible for their company’s technology in Finland. The selection criteria are very comprehensive and are specified by three categories: the person, the CTO's company and societal impact. The nomination period is open until 8th January 2021.

Society will be fossil free. Establishing the technology and value chain that are needed to capture carbon dioxide requires serious investments, but who dares and can invest in projects associated with risk? The European Investment Fund (EIF) does! During the summer, they went out with a call for projects that could demonstrate innovative technologies in this area.

What does it mean for me that the European Union budget decisions are finally taking a remarkable step forward? The EU budget negotiators are discussing the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for 2021-2027, which also includes a big share of the innovation funding of EU. Now that we almost have a financial framework, we can start making decisions about the parts in it, including, for example, the Horizon Europe programme. As another positive result, the EP budget negotiators secured an additional 16 B€ to reinforce the flagship programmes.