Research areas

Public-Private Innovation/Partnerships/Collaboration/Co-creation; Cross-sectorial innovation/Collaboration; Public Entrepreneurship; Intra-organisational Processes/Innovation; Inter-organizational Innovation/Processes; Intrapreneurship; Open Innovation 

Research Interests

My research focuses on how firms, together with their external partners, discover and/or create new opportunities, and evaluate and organize these based on various governance modes: corporate venturing, corporate incubators, corporate spin-offs, corporate innovation contests or various forms of collaborations with external partners, such as Public Private Innovation. I look inside as well as outside the boundaries of focal firms, investigating how intra- and inter-organizational processes and activities emerge, or are organized for the benefit of the firms and their external partners. 

When I research intra- and inter-organizational processes and activities, I supplement entrepreneurship theory with organizational literature on cross-sector collaboration (e.g. public entrepreneurship and collaborative entrepreneurship/innovation), as this emerging literature stream enhances insight into how existing firms can benefit from innovation achieved in collaboration with multiple external partners, such as municipalities, regions, or other governing bodies, in order to create, evaluate, organize and exploit opportunities.

My current research activities explore inter-organizational activities taking place across the private and public sectors. This is a new trend, particularly among existing firms interested in contributing to public innovation. Inter-organizational research in the form of Public-Private innovation collaboration is also an emerging research field, which is dominated by a public organization perspective (Bryson et al., 2015). Public-Private Innovation still needs further development by also incorporating a business perspective (Evald, 2014), which is where my contributions are targeted. 

Focusing on the value and outcome that private firms can gain by participating in Public-Private Innovation collaborations with public organizations will strengthen our knowledge of how solutions for the public sector can create value, and will further qualify our knowledge of how these solutions are being implemented and commercialized by private players after a joint development process between public and private players. 

To advance knowledge of Public-Private Innovation I have been primary investigator and participator of several large research projects with multiple municipalities, firms, clusters and cross-disciplinary research partners. Besides having a strong focus on conducting applied and empirical based qualitative research in close collaboration with partners from the private and public context, I am committed to co-create societal relevance: I disseminate research through various channels such as the Danish national platform OPIguide.dk, digital medias, newspaper and chronicles, workshops, besides international peer-reviewed journals, books, book chapters etc.

Research information

Recent research projects, examples 

1. ‘Commercialization of Public-Private Innovation Solutions’ (Danish: Syddansk OPI-pulje 2019-2022)

Financed by: The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)

The purpose of the project ’Commercialization of PPI-solutions’ is to support firms in getting their prototypes ready for the market. In other words; ‘getting proof of concept’, which is turning an early prototype into a working prototype to demonstrate that it works and evaluating its feasibility. However, the road from concept to market is fraught with obstacles, and many businesses fail to pass beyond the development stage into the commercialization stage. This is also why this transformation process is often called the ’Valley of Death’. By supporting the firms economically (through EU regional funds) it is expected that the project will contribute positively to growth in employment, sales and export opportunities for the firms. Besides financial support, it is also anticipated that firms’ solutions will be validated through the Public-Private Innovations, as the partners will jointly test, develop and adjust the solutions. Funding is only provided when private firms collaborate with public parties to test and develop their prototypes. By connecting private firms to public organizations, firms improve their chances of adjusting their solutions in accordance with valuable public domain knowledge and feedback.

Link: https://www.welfaretech.dk/projekter/syddansk-opi-pulje-2019-2021 

2. The Public-Private Innovation Nordic Research Network 

Financed by: The Joint Committee for Nordic research councils in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NOS-HS) 

The objective with the Public-Private Innovation Nordic Research Network is to explore and advance the research field of PPI and provide knowledge and guidelines on how PPI can create value for public and private parties. Knowledge is needed on how solutions are jointly developed, how challenges are overcome, and opportunities created to enhance our understanding of how solutions are applied and diffused to the public market and to leverage and scale the opportunities. The Nordic countries takes a unique lead position in PPI as the countries have invested in various PPI-activities and created valued from these. Since throughout Europe there is increased emphasis on PPI as an essential driver for solving ‘Grand Challenges’ presented by United Nations sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s), we have a unique position to enhance research novelty. Joint network activities take place at three interrelated workshops. Purpose is to explore, enhance and elaborate across scattered PPI research conducted in Finland, Norway and Denmark and across various literature streams.

Link: https://www.aka.fi/en/nos-hs/funded-projects/nos-hs-workshops/ 

3. Cancer: Activating Technology for Connected Health – ‘Catch’: a MARIE SKŁODOWSKA-CURIE ACTIONS - European Industrial Doctorate (ITN) 

Financed by: H2020 Marie Curie (ITN) 

CATCH – offers 8 PhD positions in different institutions to research on connected health for patients with cancer. Advances in cancer diagnosis and treatment have been ground-breaking, and we are now considering some cancers as chronic disease rather than fatal illness. This moves the point of focus in the fight against cancer from sustaining life towards maximizing functional capacity and Quality Of Life (QOL). Technology advances such as gamification based on biofeedback, and neuromuscular electrical stimulation, can help support QOL, but challenges also exist. In particular we need to understand specific challenges and patient journeys associated with cancer care and how we can help patients to leverage psychological tools to better engage in their own care. We then need to optimize technological tools to meet patients’ rehabilitation needs, and finally, to understand how to bring resultant solutions to market where they can have maximal impact on quality of care. This can only be done by a multidisciplinary programme of research involving close collaboration between researchers in academic, clinical and industry settings. As such, CATCH is a deep collaboration across academic, business and clinical sectors. Link: https://www.catchitn.eu/about