Innovation competition LYS
| Reference number | |
| Coordinator | Mälardalens högskola - Mälardalens högskola, Västerås |
| Funding from Vinnova | SEK 471 338 |
| Project duration | January 2014 - August 2014 |
| Status | Completed |
Purpose and goal
Mälardalen University, Eskilstuna, Västerås and SusBiz organized a challenge prize to find climate-friendly solutions to local needs in the areas of outdoor and indoor lighting, solar shading and visualization of energy use. 19 contributions were received and four winners were selected. The winners were given the opportunity to test their solutions in 2 municipal testbeds supported and evaluated by researchers. The different phases have been evaluated and documented in order to disseminate experience and improve the skills about challenge prizes as a method.
Results and expected effects
By defining municipality needs in four specific areas, the competing companies could more easily find appropriate applications for their solutions. The municipalities could get more customized solutions. Four winners matched these needs best and could be tested in real environment in the municipalities. In addition, 2 solutions were offered to be tested outside the framework of the competition. The challenge prize as a method has given new experiences to the municipalities that can increase their innovation capacity in collaboration with academia and industry.
Approach and implementation
The implementation of the challenge prize worked smoothly thanks to previously established relationships between Mälardalen university and the municipalities through ´The social contract´, a common platform for collaboration. The design was based on a number of phases, and our assessment is that in relation to the time we had available the phases worked well except for the testbed activity, where the tests took longer time to plan and implement than anticipated. The efforts within communication work (print, film, social media etc.) has been well appreciated.