News

A new bachelor thesis project supervised by Marcus Holgersson in the innovation and intellectual property research group explores how firms in the pharmaceutical industry strategically balance the availability of their products to those who need it, especially in developing countries, with the profitability in order to cover R&D investments. The group is driven by a curiosity in how technological, societal, and financial goals, opportunities, and challenges can be matched. The project will be based on interview data as well as secondary data, with the aim of exploring what kind of strategies there currently are, what the challenges with them are, and how firms, organizations, and the society at large can change in order to better combine availability with profitability.

The group consists of Carl Ahlstrand, Jonathan Boman, Arvid Hanson, Christoffer Lindgren, Sara Locher, and Annie Milde from the Industrial Engineering and Management program at Chalmers University of Technology:

– We really look forward to discussing this fascinating and difficult question with representatives of pharmaceutical companies, as well as researchers or representatives from organizations active in the field.

If you are interested in the topic and want to contribute with your viewpoints and experience, please reach out to the group: jboman@student.chalmers.se 

Marcus Holgersson has received the honorary prize from the students of the Industrial Engineering and Management Program for his teaching at Chalmers University of Technology and for his work with the UC Berkeley summer program.

The motivation follows in Swedish: “I:arnas hederspris år 2017 går till en lärare som är pedagogisk och kunnig, men även är mån om elevernas lärande. Personen har en väldigt positiv inställning och en glad personlighet som sprider sig till studenterna. Med sin insats och otroliga engagemang under Berkeley-utbytet i somras bidrog denna person med internships till alla studenterna, flera intressanta studiebesök inom olika industrier, sökte ett stipendium som eleverna sedan fick dela på, samt ordnade så att studenterna fick studera på Berkeley-fakulteten istället för att endast nyttja lokalerna. I:arnas hederspris år 2017 går till Marcus Holgersson.”

In December our researchers Marcus Holgersson and Sarah van Santen attended the World Open Innovation Conference in San Francisco. The conference started with a visit to NASA Ames, and continued with several interesting paper presentations and challenging practitioner sessions, as well as inspiring keynote speeches by David Teece, Arati Prabhakar, Bill Ruh, and many more. The importance of open innovation and innovation management was emphasized in the context of current developments, such as digitalization.

Marcus Holgersson chaired a session on open innovation ecosystems, with presentations by Serena Flammini, Rebecca Karp, and Amadou Lo. Topics discussed included platform strategies, business model innovation, and ecosystem design.

Sarah van Santen presented a paper (co-authored with Marcus Holgersson) on startups’ decision to engage in open innovation. Based on multiple case studies with digital startups, the paper discusses firms’ reasons for ‘opening up’, the process that leads to this decision, and the resulting intellectual property strategies consisting of mutually reinforcing closed and open components.

In 2018 many firms and industries will embark on or continue on their digitalization journeys. A consequence is that firms’ resource bases are diversified into digital technologies, not seldom related to some form of information and communication technologies requiring collaboration and interoperability to reach their full potential. Technology and intellectual property (IP) strategy need to account for this change, by shifting some focus from core and enabling technologies and IP to complementary and substitute technologies and IP, and from proprietary control to controlled accessibility. Read our paper on how to adjust technology and IP strategy accordingly. It is available here, press download PDF at the top of the page for a free download of the paper:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0024630117303527

Marcus Holgersson and Ove Granstrand currently teach a course in innovation economics. Part of the course is a series of games, the “IME Award”, where student teams analyze problems and questions related to innovation economics. The team “Just in Case” has done a great job and won the competition. The winning team has, in competition with 17 other teams, proven excellent analytical skills within economic analysis of innovation. Congratulations to Jakob Dalenbäck, Erik Gedda, Axel Gerebrink, Anton Lindegren, and Justin Lundgren.