EINST4INE (the European Training Network for Industry Digital Transformation across Innovation Ecosystems) is a four million euro research initiative addressing some of the gaps and challenges faced by industries adapting to the digital revolution. On February 2021, the consortium of European and Australian partners officially launched EINST4INE's 48-month programme.
The project's comprehensive research agenda and multi-disciplinary approach will lead to tangible outputs and outcomes relevant to start-ups, large firms, low- to high-tech industries as well as enterprises with service or product-service offerings.
Professor Paavo Ritala from the LUT School of Business and Management (LBM) represents Finland in the EINST4INE team.
"The business world has become hyper-connected, with there is simply too much data and information for individuals to handle. Therefore, multi-stakeholder collaboration is crucial in resolving both small and large challenges in business and society", says Ritala.
LUT's dissertations focus on orchestrating innovation ecosystems
Worldwide, companies have committed trillions of dollars to the digital technologies transforming our everyday lives – from how we do business and purchase products to how we manage our personal finances – though not necessarily successfully. The challenge lies not only within the implementation of digital transformation, but in the complementary shift and innovation in business planning and strategy required for the new technologies to deliver their full potential.
EINST4INE's forthcoming recruitment campaign will see the appointment of high-performing, early-stage researchers ready to tackle the real-world challenges faced by industry by expanding their expertise in innovation and technology management. The project's programme of research training and development will build the cohort's ability to navigate an evolving business landscape increasingly shaped by innovations such as artificial intelligence, 3D printing and big data.
Through project-based research, their investigations will span the human side of digital transformation, management, new technologies, and innovation ecosystems.
LUT's dissertations deal with innovation ecosystem orchestration. Paavo Ritala addressed the same topic in his research article Ecosystem Legitimacy Emergence: A Collective Action View, which made it to the prestigious Journal of Management, one of the top 50 journals in the Financial Times Research rank.
"EINST4INE will increase our understanding of coordinating complex and flexible innovation ecosystems that can boost the competitiveness and innovativeness of European companies and industries", Ritala argues.
EINST4INE is coordinated by RMIT Europe (Spain). RMIT Europe is the European hub of RMIT University (Australia), a global university of technology, design and enterprise. The project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 956745.
The EINST4INE consortium comprises RMIT Europe (Spain), Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology LUT (Finland), Aarhus University (Denmark), University of Cambridge (UK), Universität Stuttgart (Germany), Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna (Italy) and Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli (Italy), as well as 15 industry and two academic partnering organisations: RMIT University (Australia) and the Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley (USA).
