The FINDER program is rooted in the wish, and necessity, to enable students to study and benefit from both academic and industrial processes and knowledge. These two worlds are not exclusive after all, but very much intertwined.
This eBook compiled by the FINDER crew attests to the various angles the FINDER project has explored over the past years in close collaboration between Radboud University, Atos and the business partners including TechQuartier and Voleo. Akin in extreme sports, where participants push themselves to their physical limits by performing dangerous activities, in academic research and training that takes place on the crossroads of business and science the team sought after new horizons and took risks by exploring new and uncharted areas of knowledge. Where inn sports, athletes work together to improve their team’s overall performance, similarly, the FINDER crew collaborated with many others to ramp up their learning, to collect and analyze both qualitative and quantitative inputs, reporting on their data amongst other by means of this eBook.
So, what is there to learn?
FINDER focuses on inclusive innovation, balancing financial and social returns for entrepreneurs or corporate companies, and developing and implementing these. FINDER’s objective is thus to create positive economic and social impact for entrepreneurs, corporate companies and wider society. FINDER acknowledges that digitally driven business ecosystems are novel and complex social systems, crossing industry and organizational boundaries; they are thus not easy to understand. Yet, as platforms for future innovation, they must and can be managed. FINDER directs the way that policy-makers and organizations can navigate and coordinate these business ecosystems, to produce continuous innovative effects, thus fueling subsequent economic growth and employability. As the project seeks to foster innovation networks in a digital era, it incorporates in its design:
- the involvement of the economically and socially marginalized,
- It explores the relation between innovative collaborative arrangements amongst organizations, and
- the inclusiveness-related societal benefits, that are the result of such partnerships in terms of income and access to resources.
By combining inter-disciplinary and complimentary training within European Industrial Doctorates, FINDER aspires to look deeply into Europe’s financial services sector, as it is being reshaped because of institutional and digitally-instilled innovative pressures. This sector serves as a forerunner in the utilization of digitally driven inter-organizational networks. The scope of this research allows us to identify the necessary changes that are required for innovation during and after digital transformation, exposing the ESRs to experience the dynamics of digital transformation, in relation to inclusive innovation up close. FINDER embraces inclusivity as a ‘win-win game’ for those involved in developing Europe’s future innovation networks in the digital era, as businesses are increasingly aware that inclusivity is not only beneficial for marginalized communities, but also for the businesses themselves.
The eBook hence kicks things off with some interesting reflections of our industry partners, followed by an introduction on the FINDER Project. These chapters are followed up by elaboration on FINDER specific topics, leading up to the final chapters with conclusions and recommendations of our Early Stage Researchers.
The inputs are in all cases the fruits of collaboration between academia and practice and tap into the various cases and datasets that have been opened up by the FINDER team over the past few years. As such, it will undoubtedly be welcomed by doctoral students, researchers and managers with an interest in learning more about the impact of digitalization, corporate entrepreneurship, innovation management and strategic management.
FINDER joined forces across a number of leading academic and business institutions. Though Atos and Radboud University are principal partners driving this collaboration, without the wider team of academics and industry professionals supporting the core project team, we would not have been able to pull this off. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all FINDER friends for their unwavering support.
Enjoy the read!
Prof. Dr. Rick Aalbers
Full Professor Corporate Restructuring & Innovation – Radboud University
Principal Investigator to the FINDER ITN program
FINDER 