Från idé till affär: Framgångsrika innovationsprocesser inom samhällsbyggandet

Report, 2017

The purpose has been to identify conditions essential for innovative ideas to be developed into commercial products, services and processes within the field of the built environment. The analysis of projects awarded innovation grants within the Bygginnovationen programme has been intended to emphasize the possibilities for firms to select strategies for initiating and exploiting innovative ideas. Innovation and planning grants for 87 projects through Bygginnovationen were listed and analysed. A workshop with construction sector experts made an in-depth study of documentation related to five representative projects. Results were used for designing a questionnaire sent to 76 grant recipients. Analysis of the 62 responses included reasons for projects not having been commercialized at the time of the survey and also recipient views on the advice given by the Bygginnovationen Business Council. Applicant firms were found to belong to a broad range of industries. Firms that had successfully commercialized their ideas were slightly younger and had slightly more employees than those who had not (yet) been able to reach the market. One fifth of all supported project ideas had been commercialized, and for most of the remaining projects, development was still going on. The greatest obstacle to commercialization appears to be complexity of the project idea, followed by insufficient market size. Advice given by the Bygginnovationen Business Council was often seen by applicants as helpful, and a frequent consequence was that projects were strengthened by supplementary competences.