Customer story

Two winning projects in the leading companies competition by Business Finland

Customer story in numbers

40

Million €

3

Winners

2

Projects

Funding instrument

Business Finland

Finland's national targets include using a minimum of 4% of GDP on R&D and achieving the climate and energy targets agreed in the EU. To reach this target, Business Finland launched a challenge competition for leading companies. The goal was to activate particularly large companies to significantly increase their research, development and innovation activities and create billion-euro ecosystems for new business in Finland.

Four leading companies with three projects were announced as the winners of the competition. Nokia, one of the four winning companies will launch a project called “Unlocking Industrial 5G” which allows the company to innovate new products, services and solutions in Finland and develop and commercialise them together with the companies in the local ecosystem.

Fortum and Metsä Group as other two winners will create a world-class R&D programme with pulp fibre from renewable and sustainable sources as its node. ExpandFibre, the 4-year joint programme aims to develop ground-breaking technologies and smart business concepts that are required to convert straw and wood pulp fibre into novel bioproducts such as textile fibres.

Key challenges

Finland's national targets include using a minimum of 4% of GDP on R&D and achieving the climate and energy targets agreed in the EU. To reach this target, Business Finland launched a challenge competition for leading companies. The goal is to activate particularly large companies to significantly increase their research, development and innovation activities and create billion-euro ecosystems for new business in Finland.

Four leading companies with three projects were announced as the winners of the competition. Nokia, one of the four winning companies will launch a project called “Unlocking Industrial 5G” which allows the company to innovate new products, services and solutions in Finland and develop and commercialise them together with the companies in the local ecosystem.

The other winners, Fortum and Metsä Group, will create together a world-class R&D programme with pulp fibre from renewable and sustainable sources as its node. ExpandFibre, the 4-year joint R&D programme aims to develop ground-breaking technologies and smart business concepts that are required to convert straw and wood pulp fibre into novel bioproducts such as textile fibres.

How we reached the goals

Out of the three winning Veturi project entities, Spinverse provided support to two of them at the application phase, in planning and preparing the proposals. For the ExpandFibre project, Spinverse also facilitates the setting up of the programme activities.

Key takeaways

Nokia plans to invest approximately 50 million euros in 5G R&D in Finland over a three-year period starting from the second half of 2020, aiming to hire more people into its R&D teams. However, the Business Finland's program for leading companies is likely to create new jobs and business opportunities with other ecosystem partners as well.

Similarly, ExpandFibre is challenging other actors of the related value chains to accelerate their efforts in building a world-leading innovation ecosystem together and subsequently, enable new bioproducts and green businesses to reach commercial maturity. The new innovations have the potential of offering remarkable revenue streams for several value chain participants such as farmers, forest owners, refiners and end-product manufacturers.

Contact Us

Do you want to find out how Spinverse could help you? Contact us today!

Kaisu Leppänen

Director and Team Leader for Bioeconomy, M.Sc. (Chem.)

+358 44 288 4824

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