Arctic Development Environments
CLUSTER IN A NUTSHELL
- Arctic research, development and innovation services in Lapland
- 50 modern development environments
- More than 750 experts and specialists
- Multidisciplinary research communities from University of Lapland, Lapland University of Applied Sciences, Natural Resources Institute Finland, Geological Survey of Finland, Vocational College Lappia and Lapland Vocational College
- Artic Power – Cold climate testing
- Arctic Steel and Mining – Ultra strong steel and bulk steel research and testing
- ENVI – Welfare business virtual centre
- Natural Resources Institute Finland – laboratory, environment, food and primary research
- SINCO – Service design facilities
- SKY – social and healthcare simulation environment
- Audiovisual production research and testing studio
Arctic development environments produce services for the region’s businesses. The significance of development environments and experts working there to the area’s RDI activities has been traditionally valued in Lapland, which is why much investment have been made in them. The development environments are physical and virtual environments meant for use in learning and innovation, such as laboratories, studios, workshops or simulation environments where products, services and expertise can be further developed.
Approximately ten RDI organisations operate in Lapland and they manage approximately fifty different development environments. Now, the Lapland-based RDI organisations operate as separate actors according to their owner organisations’ objectives and strategic goals. The Arctic Development Environments Cluster started its operations in autumn 2015 by mapping the RDI field of Lapland and the development environments situated there. The objective of the Arctic Development Environments Cluster is to bring together the RDI environments and expert services operating separately in Lapland to form a uniform body to serve the region’s business life and to enable the development of business life and business investments in product development and internationalisation.
Freshly starting and small businesses, for example, often do not have contacts to the research world and they often have business-related development needs but lack the required resources. The task of the cluster is to bring together the RDI services of Lapland by establishing Lapland’s regional research, development and innovation activity expertise entity where research activities are allocated across organisational limits with a business life need orientation. A joint research strategy will be formed for the expertise centre to strengthen the region’s Arctic research and research strategy and to enable the mandates and roles of separate research institutes to join forces. The new operating model will be used to develop an innovation ecosystem based on the research activities of Lapland with a focus on RDI-based innovation cycle management and the identification of technology readiness levels (TRL).
The ideas and concepts created with the help of a shared service model based on the identification of the technology readiness levels (TRL) will be tested with the help of pilots, and concrete results will be served to businesses and for utilisation in the business operations and production processes of the interest groups. Further resources for the region’s development can be acquired through international cooperation. Networking with the other European expertise centres enables cooperation and planning of new project initiatives and consortia, in particular, in the spearhead areas of research. The final goal is to support in this manner the business life of Lapland to develop new products and to launch them with the help of high-quality research.
FURTHER INFORMATION
Cluster Manager Raimo Pyyny
raimo.pyyny@lapinamk.fi
+358 40 555 8065
Arctic Development Environments Cluster Service Portal ARDICO.fi
Lapland's first digital innovation hub
The Arctic Development Environments cluster was approved as Lapland’s first official digital innovation hub in February 2021!
Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs) are part of the EU’s digital strategy to support the uptake of digital opportunities, new business opportunities and services, and sustainable growth and prosperity.
Digital innovation clusters are multi-stakeholder consortia with the aim to accelerate the digitalization of SMEs and the public sector in their area. One-stop-shops provide services that support digitization, such as training, testing and trial services, financial advice, and support for networking.
Dropstick sensor is an example of the potentials that digitalization can offer. The sensor makes driving prediction smarter.
The changing weather conditions in Finnish winter bring challenges to driving, and slippery roads are often a problem. The sensor seeks to meet these challenges by measuring the temperatures of different layers of the road surface, making weather forecasting much more accurate and real-time. The dropstick sensor has been developed by Lapland University of Applied Sciences’ prototyping service unit TEQU in cooperation with Marjetas Academy.
The sensor utilizes an IoT network that enables wireless and cost-effective data transfer. With a pan-European IoT network, Dropstick is expected to be launched in the European market in the future.
- Working with TEQU has been an excellent thing. TEQU’s development team hears the customer’s wishes carefully and works with a prompt schedule. International marketing has also been successful and we have got new contacts all the way from Europe, says Jari Marjeta, CEO of Marjetas Academy.
In addition to Dropstick, Marjetas Academy’s services include a weather service platform, which measurement accuracy is based on good sensor coverage. Sensors are economical and there is numerous amount of them, allowing a comprehensive observation of local weather conditions. Marjetas Academy is on the edge of development when it comes to digitality and future trends.
