On the science pages of the daily Helsingin Sanomat last August, Mr. Osmo Pekonen, Docent of Mathematics at the Universities of Helsinki and Jyväskylä, championed blackboards despite the new technologies invading classrooms.

According to Pekonen, working on a blackboard helps you to concentrate on the essential, a.k.a. thinking. That is why the blackboard continues to be the top scientists’ choice instead of more up-to-date gadgets.

Mr. Lars Gädda, Research Director for the Forest Cluster Ltd, does not have a blackboard in his office, though he ought to. One of the walls is covered with A4 sheets, which he has filled up mainly with chemical formulae. Most of them seem to include the letter C, the chemical sign for carbon.

“I’m thinking up new things,” Gädda says. That is his work: to help industry and people to find new possibilities and solutions, be they products or processes.

Forest sector is more innovative than its reputation
But how can you help people invent new things?

”The most important thing is to understand how a company works, what its function is and how the people relevant to decision-making think,” Gädda says.

“To create a new thing you need an idea, the right people and a management that understands, supports and stands up for the personnel – gives space for creating new things.”

The reputation of the Finnish forest sector in Finnish media is one of a slow reformer that invests too little in research and development. Gädda says this reputation is undeserved.

”Innovation and development is carried out all the time. All achievements are not talked about and sometimes this is justified from the business point of view. On the other hand, it is true that the sector does not know how to be boldly communicative about its development. For example, a new product has to be really certain and profitable, before people have the courage to speak about it.”

It is a fact that no new idea turns into a product in a moment. For example, the paper industry tends to need heavy investments in machinery, and it can take ten years for an idea to become a product. In ICT and services this development is faster.

Ideas should be tested in pilot projects
How do you know what to invent? “You have to try and see where the world is going, to monitor trends and the changing of values,” Gädda says.

“A good way to test new ideas is lightweight and small-scale pilot projects. This means starting many projects with a key customer, perhaps, and just quickly checking whether they develop into something or not. We know from innovation research that out of a thousand ideas that have been deemed valid, only one develops into a good business generating a turnover of several hundred millions.”

Frankly, pilot projects do not sound like a new idea; this was the modus operandi back when the sector was developed. However, in the daily work of the forest sector today, the bulk of R&D funding tends to go to improving the profitability of existing businesses.

There are takers for the other available funds, and only the best projects and those related to core business areas receive funding.

”In one of my ex-jobs, we agreed with my superior that all public funding received, such as that from the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation Tekes, was seen as risk funding. It was used to fund more experimental projects, and what we called normal, everyday R&D was funded by the company’s own money. I think this continues to be a sound principle,” Gädda says.

SCA wants to make diapers from wood
Gädda believes strongly that by doing, you learn new things, spot problems and invent new solutions.

However, he thinks that one barrier to development is the way things are done in Finland.

There is too little entrepreneurship and Finns also have too much fear of failure. More cooperation is needed and people should not be afraid that someone else will steal their ideas, quite the opposite. If an idea is rejected in one company, it can be passed on to others.

Such a culture of generating ideas and development, in which new ideas and development needs are open so that anyone can start working on them, is called open innovation.

One example of this comes from Sweden and the tissue paper company SCA. The company has publicly announced that they would like to manufacture disposable and biodegradable wood-based diapers for kids and seniors alike.

The puck has been passed to researchers and projects: who will join in the process to make this wish a reality?

By Krista Kimmo



Forest Cluster Ltd
Tekes – the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation