How IKEA and Kistler leveraged EPFL's KNOVA to drive innovation

In June 2020, deep into the COVID-19 pandemic, the global management consultancy, McKinsey, released a report on the importance of innovation to unlock post-crisis growth. Yet, a survey conducted for the same report found that only a fifth of more than 200 companies questioned felt equipped to deal with the innovation challenges ahead.

Enter KNOVA, EPFL’s partnership acceleration program to help companies leverage innovation in everything from methodologies to deep tech. It’s a tailored, flexible and practical program that offers a one-stop-shop approach to help companies discover and collaborate with EPFL’s rich research ecosystem as well as network with other companies and start-ups housed in the university’s Innovation Park.

After pandemic related delays in 2021, the 2022 KNOVA cohort was made up of six companies including Chargeurs, that pioneered and piloted the program in 2021, Edge, IKEA, Kistler, Ruag and Sensirion .

At Kistler, we joined KNOVA with a few specific goals. One was visibility on campus to students, another was access to technology and know-how that we don’t have inhouse and, of course, to work with EPFL labs developing technologies from the ground up that could potentially be integrated into our products

One very valuable aspect of the program for Kistler was its relationship with an account manager, Emilie Michel, who was key in matching the company with relevant institutes and labs. One challenge, in just a 12-month program, were the often-long time frames needed to develop projects due to the differing objectives of academia and business.

“As an industrial company we need a business case and we want to have ownership of intellectual property, whereas publishing papers is more important from an academic perspective. To frame a project that works for both parties takes a long time,” continued Schatte. “We’ve learned that collaboration like this is built upon trust and at the end of the day for each of the activities you identify you have different relationships that you have to manage and build up. This simply takes time. You can't just come in and do it in a few months.”

IKEA, which has many relationships with academic institutions, had different objectives.

We joined the KNOVA program to better understand how relationships between academia and business can work in the best possible way, especially when it comes to innovation and technology, so we can design even better collaborations in the future. Secondly, we wanted to explore the possibility of developing various technologies with EPFL, or with the start-ups that are part of the ecosystem. In this program we focused on sustainability and circularity connected to the material that we use in our product range.

In general, universities have research know-how, developing ideas from scratch but usually lack the experience and resources for industrialization. On the flip-side, in industry it is often impractical to develop technologies from inception but companies have the know-how to complete commercialization once early tech has progressed past its initial stages.

While this can be complimentary, it can also be a challenge. “How to create a bridge between low technology readiness levels (TRL) and the more mature TRL that business needs is one of the challenges that needs to be addressed in academic/business relationships. A second is always having that strong business case for us upfront in the work we are doing because our ultimate goal is to have that innovation reach the customer,” continued Stefan Rothmaier, Global Business Development Leader at IKEA.

For EPFL, keeping up the momentum and remaining creative in its partnerships with business are important drivers of innovation. The EPFL Innovation Park, with around 200 companies and start-ups is a showcase of this and now, in a world that changes at an incredible pace, KNOVA gives businesses from outside this environment tailored entry into the opportunities and benefits the EPFL ecosystem can offer.

“We’re thrilled to have completed the 2022 edition of KNOVA, the first full year post COVID that the program has run. Thank you to the group of pioneers who saw beyond the pandemic storm and were willing to take on this adventure with us,” said Federico Matteini, Program Lead for KNOVA at the Vice-Presidency for Innovation. “We’ve seen great success and learned a lot in the process, including the importance of incentives and strategic scouting, connectivity and trust between stakeholders and the need for a structured ecosystem approach to nurture all the horizons of innovation for both quick results and longer-term innovation projects,” he continued.

Kistler is continuing with KNOVA in 2023 and in addition to the EPFL relationships it has established, welcomed the opportunity to interact with other participants in the program. “What we’ve also valued is seeing how other companies approach innovation. We’ve learned a lot from IKEA, for example, which has huge innovation resources for any idea that anyone wants to investigate,” commented Schatte. “We want to stay with KNOVA because of the valuable insights and developments we can gain, even if it takes a bit longer than expected.”

KNOVA emerged in the midst of a global crisis and certainly represents the beginning of something – an evolution in how EPFL is working with the private sector to drive innovation for the good of society. The success of the first full edition of KNOVA has paved the way for the 2023 cohort, with 16 new companies set to begin in February this year.