Continuous innovation has ensured a vibrant and lively ecosystem, observed Jeremy Klein, Chair of RADMA, at the 2024 R&D Management Conference. The charitable organisation is funded by profits from the R&D Management Journal and supports post-graduate students.

One of its outreach activities is sponsorship of the conference and this year it was particularly well attended.

Jeremy says: “Magic happened when the conference was combined with the colloquium – suddenly students were able to access advice from academia and the entire community could share their knowledge.”

He thanked KTH and the co-hosts of the conference Mats Engwall, Professor of Industrial Management, and Mats Magnusson, Professor of Product Innovation Engineering, for the smooth organisation of an excellent conference.

He also paid tribute to R&D Management Journal which has gone from strength to strength. The co-editor Paavo Ritala announced a new board of reviewers to acknowledge their contribution to the journal.

The core of the conference is the nurturing of academic research and the best paper was nominated by the track chairs for its quality of research, relevance to the current environment and fitting with the conference theme.

The best paper was ‘Collaborative Innovation in the Construction Industry – stakeholder collaboration as an enabler for innovation in a circular economy,’ co-authored by Johanna Zellert and Cornelius Herstatt, Hamburg University of Technology.