Kuopio Health Board blog: Elias Haapakorva and Mikko Juuti
“The work carried out by the working groups plays a huge part in ensuring the effectiveness of the innovation ecosystem.”
Introducing a set of indicators to measure impacts – but doing it wisely
Kuopio Health is about to start an interesting year of operation. During our first few years, we’ve set up the innovation ecosystem operations: the organisation has become established, our networks are in order, we’ve set up working groups, and have an actively operating board. The situation is much better than in the time before the innovation ecosystem, and the members are reaping benefits from the ecosystem. But we have not done enough yet. We’ve left the launching stage behind, and now is the time to take greater leaps forward.
In fact, one of the biggest themes of this year involves introducing a set of indicators to measure impacts. And doing it wisely. While it’s easy to measure how our membership base is growing, setting up genuine indicators to measure the impacts of the ecosystem operations is a far more challenging task. In addition to indicators concerned with euros, we also need ones that measure how our cooperation is evolving. An important part of this task is to gauge the views of our members on what they perceive as important indicators of their activities. By engaging the members in the process, we’ll gain access to a set of indicators that work and which the members can commit to. There are dozens of potential indicators, from the number of studies, innovations and commercialisation projects to other key figures measuring the development of cooperation. We need indicators that are simple and sufficiently concrete, and we must not have too many of them.
Communication is key
Another important area that needs emphasis in Kuopio Health is our internal and external communication. Communication provides an excellent way to make our impacts visible. We have great members and they’ve had great successes, which we can communicate about outside the ecosystem. Everybody wins when we bring attention to these successes, as it also boosts the ecosystem and showcases its results. Meanwhile, we can use our internal communications to also influence our members to see things we all consider important as well as to subscribe to our mutual goals. This guides the activities of individual members in the right direction.
Become a member of the R&D cooperation group
Now is also a great time to become involved in working group activities. Mikko is the leader of the R&D cooperation group which aims to bring projects and companies together. This provides us with better opportunities for promoting our joint research ideas and projects and ensures that everyone’s voice gets heard. All interested members are welcome to participate in the working group. We provide information about meetings on our website, for instance. We wish that as many of our members as possible will participate in the events and workshops. After all, the ideas and insight on which future successes are built often originate from chats around a cup of coffee or hallway conversations.
The cooperation group is an important part of the activities of the Kuopio Health open innovation ecosystem. We need places and time for coming together to discuss the themes and collaboration related to our R&D work. It’s critical that people with a genuine interest in these activities are present in those meetings. The work carried out by the working groups plays a huge part in ensuring the effectiveness of the innovation ecosystem. The working groups are where we get to make sure that our impacts will not be isolated but, instead, form greater wholes.
Are you interested in the activities of the R&D cooperation group? We provide information about the group’s meetings on our website and social media channels. If you’re not a member yet but would like to get involved in the working groups, contact Aki Gröhn, CEO, Kuopio Health, aki.grohn(at)kuopiohealth.fi
You can find upcoming cooperation group meetings on the events page