Serie R: Business Creation and Competence Centre Building

The publication "Business Creation and Competence Centre Building - Lessons Learnt from the NoICE Project" has been published in Novias own publication series, Serie R, Rapporter 2/2023

Abstract

Competence centres are long-term research and innovation structures that aim to strengthen collaborations, increase communication, and support innovations. During 2018 – 2022, the Botnia-Atlantica funded project NoICE – Nordic Icing Centre of Expertise aimed to establish a long-lasting competence centre focusing on atmospheric icing.

There are several steps involved in creating a successful competence centre. This report describes this process during NoICE, from initial learnings from other competence centres to applying the knowledge, understanding stakeholder’s needs, working with network building, and launching the centre.
As could be seen from the case NoICE, the project managed well with achieving many of its intermediate goals on the way towards building a long-lasting competence centre. However, the biggest challenge of ensuring long-term funding could not be solved during the project time. All competence centres have their unique challenges and characteristics. By documenting and sharing the lessons learnt during NoICE, the project group at Novia hopes to support future centre initiatives by publishing and providing insights from this particular centre build.

Key words: Competence centre, centre building, icing, network building