From laboratory to the market: An exploratory case study of an innovation ecosystem in Finland

Abstract

This thesis studies an innovation ecosystem. In the field of innovation policy, innovation ecosystems have become a popular instrument, advocated to facilitate economic development and sustainable growth as a response to global challenges. The purpose of an innovation ecosystem is to foster collaboration between academia and industry. Innovation ecosystems combine the generation of new knowledge with the exploitation of it through the commercialization of innovations. This study aims to investigate how an innovation ecosystem, which is built on the base of fundamental research funding, can engage companies in a way that is beneficial for both academia and industry. The specific research questions are as follows: How do academia and industry collaborate in an evolving innovation ecosystem in Finland? How could this collaboration be improved?

This study follows the qualitative research tradition. The philosophical foundation of the study is critical realism and the method is an exploratory single-case study. The diverse data set consists of five open interviews, seven semi-structured interviews, a survey, informal meetings, and existing documents.

This thesis contributes to the fast-increasing and fragmented literature on innovation ecosystems by providing insights on the real-life challenges of collaborating in the complex structure. This thesis finds that the widely recognized lack of scientific rigor regarding the innovation ecosystem concept indeed translates to practice. The theoretical ambiguity results in confusion about how to successfully build fruitful collaborations to bridge the gap between science and business. The study suggests that establishing a common strategy for ecosystem value creation and capture can facilitate the engagement of companies in research-based ecosystems. Furthermore, the findings indicate that current state-level funding instruments and conditions in Finland do not sufficiently support academia-industry collaboration from the perspective of large companies. This signals a need for intense dialogue between different actors in the field of publicly funded innovation activities on how to facilitate both the creation and capture of value in ecosystems.