Incubation for Public Innovation

Purpose and goal

ToY (team of Young professionals) has been developed as a complement to VFU Innovation integrating students into incubation for public innovation. Necessary time to integrate VFU Innovation into program curriculum was underestimated and only a few VFU Innovation attempts could be managed. Therefore introduction of the ToY model. Still VFU Innovation will be integrated into curriculums during 2016-2017 as an effect of the project. The ToY model is, and VFU Innovation will be, an important infrastructure component in supporting public innovation and entrepreneurship.

Results and expected effects

The project has developed a new incubator component which systematically identifies challenges and incubates ideas in collaboration with public and private organisations. Students achieves strenghtened entrepreneurial skills and capabilities through participation in the ToY projects. The ToY projects has led to start-ups, employment and new products/services in private companies. The project also developed new, to incubation in public innovation, effecient business designer skills and roles.

Approach and implementation

Fourteen appliction projects has been executed by students supervised by business designers either in VFU Innovation or in the ToY model. Experiences or learnings made in application projects were iteratively evaluated and analyzed together with researchers at CBS. Together with the researchers, throughout the project, a new incubator model for public innovation was developed. Collaboration activities with BTH was conducted initially but had to be put on hold due to an reorganisation at BTH Innovation. This had no effect on the expected outcome of the project.