Realising the potential of our research leadership

This post is also available in: Danish

By Cecilie Brøkner, Director of Innovation Fund Denmark

Danish research is world-class, and as a state, we invest tens of billions of kroner annually in research and development. But if Denmark wants to achieve its great ambitions for the green transition, among other things, we need to convert much more of the excellent research and the large investments into concrete value for society that can be felt by all of us. Into new business ideas, products and new solutions to the challenges we face as a society – for example, through some of the spinouts you can read about in this magazine.

Innovation Fund Denmark was created to bridge the gap between knowledge and research on the one hand and companies and other users on the other. In recent years, we have increased our investments in research-based entrepreneurship by almost doubling the budget for the Innoexplorer programme.

Innoexplorer aims to mature entrepreneurship based on knowledge and research results from Danish public research and educational institutions and hospitals. Since the programme opened in 2019, the success rate has grown steadily. In the latest application round, 48 per cent of applicants received a grant.

This is an indication of the high quality of applications, and universities can take a lot of the credit for this. Danish universities are becoming more and more professional in offering help with entrepreneurship, and more and more research groups at universities have experience working with innovation.

Research-based entrepreneurship from universities is essential because it has a greater potential to create value for society than non-university-based entrepreneurship. For example, research-based companies grow faster and create more jobs on average than other companies once the start-up period is over.

When Innovation Fund Denmark invests public money in research-based entrepreneurship, it is because these types of startups can have difficulty attracting private capital. Their business idea can be development-heavy and very risky, so it is important that there are instruments to derisk the idea so it has the opportunity to mature and become more attractive to private investors.

“In our experience, there is still a large untapped potential for research-based entrepreneurship in Denmark.”

Cecilie Brøkner, Director of Innovation Fund Denmark

In our experience, there is still a large untapped potential for research-based entrepreneurship in Denmark. Many disciplines have experience in translating their research into innovation that benefits society. We believe that there are important contributions to be made from Deep Tech, but also from the social sciences and humanities.

One of the measures that can help realise this potential is a more cohesive research and innovation system.

Innovation Fund Denmark is the public fund in the Danish knowledge-based innovation system that covers the broadest scope – from research to solutions that are ready to be implemented in society. And we are very conscious of the fact that this mandate obliges us. Among other things, to play an active role in ensuring that the system is well connected and that efforts are coordinated.

As a concrete contribution to tying the system together better, Innovation Fund Denmark would like to commit to exploring opportunities and interest in partnerships and co-investments with both public and private investment actors in order to leverage the innovation funds and create even more impact and societal value for money.

In this context, we are currently developing a mapping of the system’s actors to create an overview of whether there are gaps or unproductive overlaps in the Danish funding ecosystem.
As a society, we simply don’t have the time or the money for the system not to work together optimally when the overriding climate crisis, a healthcare system on its knees and current security challenges urgently call for new technologies and innovative solutions.