Sirpa Kokko, MSc, Specialist, New Industry Expertise Group, Lapland University of Applied Sciences
Anthony Okuogume, Lic. Adm. Sc (PhD), Senior lecturer, Digital Solutions Expertise Group, Lapland University of Applied Sciences
Jukka Joutsenvaara, MSc, Senior specialist, New Industry Expertise Group, Lapland University of Applied Sciences
This article represents SDG goal 4: Quality Education
The unique economic structure of Lapland, characterized by its sparse population, needs targeted development efforts. Similar challenges are faced by Eastern Finland, prompting a strategic alliance between Northern and Eastern regions for future planning and joint lobbying in the European Commission. This collaboration aims to enhance regional development and support local companies. The Centers for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment play a crucial role in this process by enforcing government regulations and aiding startups and established companies with international ambitions. Lapland University of Applied Sciences (Lapland UAS) actively contributes to this development through its educational programs, expertise and research.
The economic profile of Lapland underpins the Smart Specialization Strategy (S3), a vital development tool needed across Europe. The S3 framework influences EU funding instruments, making its integration essential for funding approval. Lapland has been a pioneer in implementing S3, particularly in the mining sector. The HEI4S3-RM project exemplifies the successful application of S3 from conceptualization to project completion.
Lapland UAS’s involvement in regional economic development is significant, using its resources to foster innovation and growth. By aligning with the S3 and collaborating with regional authorities, Lapland UAS supports sustainable economic development and the international expansion of local businesses. This integrated approach ensures that Lapland stays competitive and resilient in the face of economic challenges.
Project objectives, scope and interests for participation
The core objectives of the project are closely related to the development of entrepreneurial and innovation actions in project partners and their stakeholders. The objectives can roughly be grouped into three distinct categories: internal process and capability assessment, project participant and stakeholder activation and knowledge transfer as well as securing entrepreneurial aspect for future innovators with selected actions based on the project results.
As the funding was secured from the EIT Raw Materials, it indicated that the research, activities and outcomes would be related to the raw materials sector. The project linked nicely participants from various fields of business and technology across Europe. All participants had their own unique set of skills and experience that without the project would have been remarkably different in terms of the outcomes. We, as Lapland university of Applied Sciences, were the northernmost participant and had an important role of conveying our role as a regional developer as well as the importance of sustainability in the Arctic.
Responsible RDI work and the creation of new innovations
At Lapland University of Applied Sciences (Lapland UAS), responsible Research, Development, and Innovation (RDI) work is a key focus. By incorporating ethical considerations and sustainability into projects, Lapland UAS aims to develop technologies and solutions that address both current and future challenges. This approach fosters innovation and reinforces Lapland UAS’s role in promoting sustainable development.
Responsible actions, including research, are based on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The selection of goals is an internal decision of the actors involved, and their applicability must be carefully considered to truly reflect the strategic choices of the entity, such as a company or an educational institution.
The management system chosen by Lapland UAS encourages the creation of new innovations by providing a safe environment for testing new ideas and solutions. Students are given access to research equipment and environments, supporting the development of an innovative mindset. The creation of innovations requires networking and teamwork, which are core principles at Lapland UAS.
Benefits of the project to the local innovation ecosystem
Better understanding of the regional innovation ecosystem was achieved during the project. With that understanding, a stronger contribution to the regional Smart specialization (Arctic smartness) was made. In addition, promoting entrepreneurial culture and educating innovation and entrepreneurship at Lapland University Consortium (e.g. online courses). Identifying labs, development environments and facilities supporting entrepreneurship and innovation (with links in the Smart specialization and the Arctic development environments) was carried out with enhanced impact in the region.
Creating organizational support structure such as the Institutional Management Board (IMB) and joining networks such as the the Xplorer network, which consists of Finnish HEIs and promotes sustainable mineral recycling. Participating in scientific events, seminars and webinars in the field of entrepreneurship, innovations, circular economy, mining and raw materials were key steps taken to reach the goals of the project. Information on the project activities and objectives was well dissimilated in the region. For example, knowledge sharing and promoting the project was widely made to all stakeholders. Such as, cooperation and sharing best practices with the Project consortium members.
What have we learned from the project partners?
The project Consortium worked very well together. All the partners were willing to share their best practices, knowledge and experiences. Online meetings and onsite project meetings were places for sharing.
General internationalization and skill building
Internationalization and skill-building was strengthened through cooperation with the Consortium partners, and this generated added value helped strengthen entrepreneurial and innovation capacity of Lapland UAS and in the regional context.
To develop entrepreneurial and innovation capacity of the organization (HEI), the whole HEI (people) were involved in the process. With that level of involvement, we were able to create and bring to use new ideas and practices at different levels of HEI to solve problems and achieve required results.
The Project helped us to recognize our own weaknesses and strengths and made it possible for us to learn good practices from the project partners. We were encouraged to think ‘outside the box’ and introduce our own good practices as well. To put it simply – innovations arise from people and networks. With the insights and results achieved, the HEI must then be able to support problem-solving innovation actions and interaction between students, staff and management in the context. During the Project, we were able to review our structures, policies and capabilities in that context.
Our strengths lie in flexibility/agility and low organizational structure. Communication between the faculties, departments and students is relatively fast and straightforward and we already have forums for interaction. Documented processes of key operations support execution of actions. In the beginning of the Project, the IMB was founded to support organizational innovation capacity (Kokko & Kassinen 2023). The IMB was supporting both the Project execution and organizational development.
In the strategy of the Lapland University Consortium, the strategic choices, development focuses, and key expertise areas are identified. The strategy enables support and ensure the execution of that strategy. A strong network of partner companies and organizations helped us to identify needs in different fields of expertise (e.g. mining and raw materials). New innovations and entrepreneurship are likely to grow in key areas of expertise with the support of HEI, partners, networks and other supportive structures in the province of Lapland. However, we need projects like this to build and strengthen our skills in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship. The value of cooperation and interaction with the consortium partners was high – we learnt a lot from each other!
Learning from the Project Partners
During the project, the Consortium partners met in person five times. The meetings were in Oviedo (Spain), Kemi (Finland), Łodź (Poland), Bochum (Germany) and Huelva (Spain). In all the meetings, time reserved for the activities, sharing knowledge and discussions run out. In the meeting in Kemi, knowledge of partnership and clusters as well as entrepreneurship and innovation were shared. In the meeting in Łodź, Poland, success stories of the Talent Labs (Learning Environments) in each HEI were shared and learned how to tell a good story to promote the Talent Labs. Visits to Bełchatów (open pit mine) and ceramic factory in the town of Opoczno were also included in the meeting activities and covered in the news release of the town of Opoczno (Opoczno 2023).
In the final meeting of the project in Huelva, the Project organized the Green Week 2024 Event “BE WATER our friends”, shared contributions of the project, and discussed future collaborations of the project consortium. Networking among the project partners, especially multi-disciplinary approaches, was welcomed and proved fruitful in the long run. The final meeting was also a possibility to discuss future collaboration in education between Lapland UAS and the University of Huelva. The collaboration between Lapland UAS and the University of Huelva, had already, resulted in joint course planning, visiting lecturers and the joint research article published by Anthony Okuogume and Nuria Toledano (Okuogume and Toledano 2024).
Besides the project meetings, staff internships were excellent ways to network and build bridges for deeper collaboration. Professor Nuria Toledano of the University of Huelva spent five days in October 2023 in Lapland UAS visiting all three campuses, meeting lecturers and specialists, and learning Talent Labs on the campuses. Another staff internship took place in January 2024 when Sirpa Kokko spent nine days in the University of Oviedo. The internship included meeting professors and researchers on three campuses of the University of Oviedo and visiting entrepreneurial center in Gijón and co-working spaces in Oviedo and Avilés. The visit to the co-working space La Curtidora in Avilés got interest of the local media and ended up in two newspapers: La Nueva España and El Comercio. The most important outcomes of this staff internship were networking and learning good practices of co-spaces for entrepreneurs and for local companies related to circular economy in the principality of Asturias.
Learnings for the region
The project affected our knowledge and capacity to understand the Smart specialization strategies in our region. For example, in Lapland, the Arctic Smartness concept is the leading initiative for implementing smart specialization. The implementation of the Arctic Smartness is based on regional cooperation, and works from an ecosystem-based operating model, where the actors share common goals to develop Lapland. The vision of Lapland’s smart specialization is to hold a leading position in sustainable utilization and commercialization of Arctic natural resources and conditions. Efficient regional development requires that regional actors share the same vision, work together and operate successfully both nationally and internationally.
Lapland university of Applied Sciences is one of the Arctic Smartness partners and Smart specialization is a solid part of our everyday RDI work. During the Project, at Lapland University of Applied Sciences, the roles and responsibilities of regional Smart specialization have come closer to the department level. As an example, department leaders are coordinating some of the project-families of the development focuses of the Smart specialization strategy. This is an example that shows how Lapland University of Applied Sciences contributes to the regional Smart specialization.
Changes in the Innovation environment at Lapland University of Applied Sciences
Status before the change
At the start of the HEI4S3-RM project, internal assessment was made to get an overall view of the current state of entrepreneurial education and practices in Lapland UAS. Results from the assessment showed that entrepreneurial education was minimal in the faculties other than Business Administration, and there was only little co-operation between the faculties. With the scope of the project in mind, evaluation of the reasons and the consequences of diminished entrepreneurial education activities was started.
Change
The biggest change internally was that the discussion was brought up again in education planning as well as in the competence listing needed by the industries in the region. The project findings and experiences from other partners were helpful to the discovery.
The findings clearly pointed out that the current situation or curriculum in the field of engineering doesn’t offer enough entrepreneurial skills to the students to be really active in the startup phase. This is a significant finding that would motivate changes in the future. The discussion was held between the staff responsible for different courses at Lapland University of Applied Sciences.
Governing factors of the changes
The discussions were initiated and enabled by the project and the participation of various HEIs. The experiences from the project opened some debate on the competencies desired by the industry. The project partners have also enabled new co-operation between staff in various fields. The most successful result for newly formed co-operation is the jointly written publication (Okuogume, A. and Toledano, N. 2024).
Discussions with the Entrepreneurs’ Union in the region pointed out that the competencies required or desired by companies are shifting to more general type of competences. The enterprises and industrial operators in the region have expressed that educational institutions play vital roles in securing future workforce and twinning of best practices from abroad for the benefit of the region. The economic structure and entrepreneurial views of Lapland are different to those of the project partners, and that could have an effect, overall, on the entrepreneurial atmosphere.
Most significant change
While concrete actions or changes are yet to be made, the idea of increasing the amount of entrepreneurial or innovation skills for our students was seen to be very beneficial. The concrete and easiest way to start to make the change is to find corresponding courses, which are running now and could have a more entrepreneurial point of view implemented or integrated with them. The timeline for the changes will be after the project ends.
To increase the knowledge of entrepreneurship of students, courses and events focusing on entrepreneurship are being organized. They are, for example, the Growth hacking -course and the international business design MBA workshop. The Bizarre Business Event, that was organized by the HEI4S3-RM project together with other similar ongoing projects in Lapland UAS and the University of Lapland in April 2024 in Rovaniemi, falls into this category.
Lessons learned
Innovation actions without guidance to entrepreneurship is only half of the equation. The entrepreneurial attitude does help in personal scale even if person does not have ambitions to be an entrepreneur. In organizational level, this attitude or operational processes helped to better respond to the customer needs – customers being our students, staff, external stakeholders, etc. Investigation of the processes in Lapland UAS and comparing the processes with those of the project partners have shown that there is room for improvement in Lapland UAS.
The experiences from educational and entrepreneurial actions made during the project
Online courses
The project offered a wide variety of online courses in the fields of mining, raw materials, innovation, entrepreneurship and circular economy. All the courses were free and lectured by professionals around Europe. It was surprising that students in Lapland UAS didn’t find them worthy of their time. Only a few students in Lapland UAS took advantage of learning from the lecturers at the top of their fields. A reason for this may be that micro-credentials nor certificates are not recognized in Lapland UAS or in Finland, in that matter.
Startup support
The Startup Services of Lapland University Consortium supports students and staff to develop company ideas as well as early steps of entrepreneurship. Startups are also mentored by Lapland UAS staff. These mentoring activities aren’t listed anywhere in the shared document. Only a person who has mentored has information personally. Also, some of the mentored startups didn’t want to be reported in the project. Because of lack of this information and unwillingness to be reported, it was challenging in the project to achieve the critical KPI of reporting of the mentored startups.
Strengthening the essential role of the university in the region’s innovation ecosystem
Lapland UAS operates in an ecologically, socially and economically sustainable manner in constant dialogue with its stakeholders and partners. Lapland UAS offers students an inspiring learning environment characterized by digital solutions, connections to working life and the economy, and participation in research and education networks.
Lapland UAS has an essential role in the innovation ecosystem of the region. Education forms a strong basis for universities’ innovation activities. For example, the expertise stemming from education is strengthened further by versatile research and development activities. This sets the basis for the regional mission for the universities. The universities’ regional mission encompasses various societal service functions, such as acting as an influencer in regional development, in expertise development, and in securing economic wellbeing. Actions for Lapland UAS to strengthen its role are shown in the table below.
Table 1. Actions for Lapland UAS to strengthen its role in the regional innovation ecosystem
| Aspect | Action |
| Leadership and governance | Strengthening entrepreneurship’s role in the organisational strategy in the UAS and LUC |
| Enabling structures to coordinate entrepreneurial activities across the whole LUC | |
| Organizational Capacity: Funding, People and Incentives | Establishing incentives and rewards for supporting the institution’s entrepreneurial mission |
| Developing a system to motivate and support bottom-up activities | |
| Fostering multidisciplinary networking to boost innovation capacities | |
| Cultivating a supporter network which will provide specialist advice to aspiring entrepreneurs | |
| Entrepreneurial Teaching and Learning | Supporting students and staff to adopt an entrepreneurial mindset: creativity, positive outlook, communicativeness, motivation, open to taking risks, not being afraid of failure but learning from it |
| Support for entrepreneurs | Strengthening entrepreneurial training for students and staff. As a university of applied sciences, Lapland UAS is a practice-oriented HEI that educates students for professional work life. Entrepreneurship studies are integrated into all undergraduate degree programmes, and further entrepreneurship studies are also available. |
| Identifying and supporting entrepreneurial talent | |
| Developing a support system for building ideas into entrepreneurial opportunities, facilitated by a startup and innovation specialist at LUC and supported by different expertise groups | |
| Facilitating networking with business advisors and financiers | |
| Offering mentorship opportunities with businesses | |
| Developing education on IPR | |
| Creating and offering an entrepreneurship MOOC for students | |
| Promoting entrepreneurship as a viable career option for students | |
| Creating a project to develop a start-up programme for students and external partners | |
| Digital Transformation and Capability | Developing business models, strategies and operating methods relying on digital technologies to improve the competitiveness of companies and the whole of society |
| Knowledge exchange and collaboration | Creating interdisciplinary training and events to increase knowledge exchange |
| Continuing to foster openness in publishing results of RDI projects and research | |
| Strengthening Lapland UAS’s role in regional development, the regional innovation ecosystem, and smart specialization | |
| Measuring impact | Committing to an annual self-assessment using the HEInnovate tool and organizing actions to target areas for improvement |
| Creating indicators to assess the impact of actions related to entrepreneurship |
Lapland UAS has solid expertise on both the circular economy and entrepreneurship and is a major part of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the region as well as Lapland’s smart specialization initiative. In the initiative, maintaining sustainable development is the foundation for the strategic choices and priorities. For example, building practices and cooperation to increase the utilization of industrial and societal side-streams. Lapland UAS has close ties with the University of Lapland, and together they form the Lapland University Consortium (LUC).
In the future more focus will be on SDGs, Circular economy, energy technologies, Power to X and high strength / CF steels. Carbon neutrality and sustainable development are institute level themes that clearly influence RDI, education and services. Together with RDI partners, we formed the Circular Economy Centre that works as a partner in circular economy and help companies make the transition to a circular economy-based business model.
Lapland UAS has official collaboration agreements with a wide variety of SMEs and larger companies. The collaboration agreements include several development goals in the fields of education, RDI and services. Our international project experience is at a very good level. All our Bachelor-level degree programs include entrepreneurship, and more in-depth training is also available. Lapland UAS is a practice-oriented HEI that educates students for professional work life. Thus, being an active part of the regional innovation and start-up ecosystem is vital to us. The educational faculty responsible for expertise inputs and for delivery the project goals in Lapland UAS are explained below for the New Industry and Digital Solutions expertise groups.
New Industry expertise group
The group’s key competence is in the circular economy, material research in the mining sector and developing and providing education in the sector. Applied research and piloting are conducted in the usability of materials such as steel, minerals and industrial side streams. Computer-assisted measurement and modelling methods, virtualization and lifecycle management are also among our strong points. The connections to industrial operators are strong.
Digital Solutions expertise group
The group focuses on developing and utilizing digital solutions in business. Their key areas include autonomous and smart systems, digital user interfaces and experiences, and leveraging digital business opportunities. A major focus is on combining smart systems with simulation/game technologies to create digital twins, along with new business models and processes related to them. Lapland UAS contributes by applying these competencies to advance circular economy and mining education, strengthen the innovation ecosystem, and promote entrepreneurship in the circular economy.
The Mining sector: Accomplished works, outcomes and key learning
Motivating innovation (Business transformation, digital and green initiatives) as drivers for new startups in the mining sector
Innovation leading to new startups is being driven by Technology integration in manufacturing and mining. Such as digitalization, smart materials, new materials driven by ecological requirement and secularity to new business model and startups in manufacturing and mining sectors. In any case, developing the capacity for such activities was well founded in the project objectives.
When considering the mining sector in particular, it was realized quite fast that we are not perceived to be a leading educator for or a source of new innovations to the mining industry. This is based on the very narrow aspect of what the mining industry requires from the workforce in the form of knowledge and skillsets. Typically, and for example, the spokesperson for the mining industry only mentions geology and refining as the “real” mining education. In our attempt to establish our role in the mining industry, it became obvious that we are not going to compete with Oulu Mining School at the University of Oulu, as they are the leading educator in geology and mineral enrichment at master and doctoral level. During the project, and also due to discussion with other stakeholders, it became clearer how LUAS supports industries in the region. LUAS produce, or in more humane terms educate, the workforce in a broad spectrum for the region’s industries. For example, industrial automation is taught at a very high level in Lapland UAS, and it is not specific to a certain process or product. Another example is mechanical maintenance and operation management as it is technically universal, and it can be easily used in mining settings as well. These two examples are only a small portion of what Lapland UAS is doing to support the region’s economy and welfare from services to industries and everything in between.
The key to learning is that we do play an important role in developing the region. However, graduates from Lapland UAS work in various positions as professionals equipped with up-to-date knowledge and armed also with some new ideas on how to improve existing and innovate new opportunities for the sustainable growth of the region. Practical insights to innovation and startup activities resulting in the exploitation of Technology integrations and innovations driven by sustainability missions was not very much the case in our observation. Today, entrepreneurship and innovation education and student’s startups in the mining sector in the region were observed to be non-existent. Innovation and entrepreneurship are missing in the strategy – and this is well reflected in the provision of mining education and research & development activities that supports the creation of startups that fully exploits new innovations in the mining sectors.
Development areas in the future
HEInnovate self-assessment was made before and after the project commenced. Based on the results of the HEInnovate self-assessment after the project, the following areas related to start-up and innovation activities in Lapland UAS were identified to have been improved during the project. The areas are e.g. good networks with entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship-related studies in different education programs and several ongoing development projects, which enhance support for start-ups in Lapland. Overall discussions of importance of supporting start-up and innovation in Lapland UAS was also improved due to the project.
Areas that need improvement in the future are: strengthening of innovation and entrepreneurship in the strategy of the institution, taking innovation and entrepreneurship into account more strongly in management and administration processes, assessment of start-up and innovation as part of the yearly strategic targets and management processes, and lastly, developing the existing mentoring concept to support start-up and innovation activities in Lapland UAS and the region as a whole.
HEI4S3-RM project
HEI4S3-RM project (Building Ecosystem Integration Labs at HEI to Foster Smart Specialization and Innovation on Sustainable Raw Materials) was funded by the European Institute of Technology (EIT). The project was implemented as part of the EIT HEI Initiative (Innovation Capacity Building for Higher Education). Ten project partners in nine countries worked closely, learning from each other, during the time period of 1.7.2022–30.6.2024.
Work of the HEI4S3-RM project in Lapland UAS is partly continued by the projects Lapland Startup Incubator and Ecosystem, Support Structures for Social Entrepreneurship in Lapland and Level Up Lapland.
Sources
HEI4S3-RM (2024). About project. https://hei4s3-rm.eu/hei4s3-rm/about-project/
Kokko, S. and Kassinen, P. (2023). Legot, ideat ja yhteistyö – avaimet innovaatiokulttuurin vahvistamiseen. Pohjoisen tekijät -blogi. https://www.lapinamk.fi/blogs/Ideat,-Legot-ja-yhteistyo-%E2%80%93-avaimet-innovaatiokulttuurin-vahvistamiseen/0q5cunco/6905cffe-8283-49e5-8e4e-1e74aa05a0bd
Lapin AMK (2022). Building Ecosystem Integration Labs in HEI project. News release. 14.9.2022. https://www.lapinamk.fi/news/Building-Ecosystem-Integration-Labs-in-HEI-project/5elead2b/2c7b5205-a7fe-47c9-84e6-ee57ce18f0a2
Okuogume, A. and Toledano, N. (2024). Co-Creation in Sustainable Entrepreneurship Education: Lessons from Business–University Educational Partnerships. Sustainability 2024, 16(6), 2272. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16062272
Opoczno. (2023). Meeting of scientists from Germany, Finland and Poland in Opoczno – an opportunity to develop innovative solutions in the field of ceramics. News release. https://www-opoczno-pl.translate.goog/aktualnosci/n,340413,spotkanie-naukowcow-z-niemiec-finlandii-i-polski-w-opocznie-szansa-do-rozwoju-innowacyjnych-rozwiazan-w-dziedzinie-ceramik.html?_x_tr_sl=pl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en
Key words: collaboration, education, higher education institute, project, key learnings, entrepreneurship, innovation