R&D Management Conference 2024 – Transforming industries through technology, at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. The beautiful main KTH Campus, where the conference was held, is situated in the northern part of central Stockholm, on the edge of the Royal National Park. With 57 tracks, key-notes and networking, the conference we beneficial in providing wide lookout on academic discussion in R&D Management field.
We had been working on our submission since last December. Title of our conference paper was “Advancing sustainable development goals: Exploring internal data sources in higher education institutions’ research and development activities”, using The South Eastern Finland University of Applied Science as a case-example of managing project performance based on United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The paper was presented in “A new management of Big Science: Science and Technology, Sustainable Development Goals and the Leave No One Behind principle” track, together with three papers concerning sustainability management from different perspectives. Presenting a paper gave us the opportunity to showcase our research and expertise and to get feedback, helping to develop the research further.
Regarding conference presentations, we followed tracks concerned with innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems, AI, sustainability and design. Having more than one writer present at the conference made it possible to follow multiple tracs and get wide use of the conference. Generally, the participation of multiple individuals from the same organisation in a conference is beneficial for idea development, especially when they have diverse skill sets. During the event, development ideas that could be relevant to the organisation are quickly identified, and thoughts are exchanged. With three people it was also beneficial to reflect on different tracks and research subjects, as well as the opportunities in networking were emphasised. Post-conference reflection is also meaningful when done together.
Especially in sustainability development interdisciplinary knowledge and collaboration is key. From attending the conference, we gained confidence that we are capable of producing content at the university of applied sciences that meets the quality standards required for scientific publishing in the conference, even though most of the participants had a university background. We got good feedback from the conference and were delighted also for the interest our research had within Xamk. A warm thanks for everyone assisting us in gathering data including project managers and grant writers who answered our survey, and especially the excellent support on scientific publishing at Xamk.
This year, the conference had more attendees than ever before. We also noticed that some conference attendees had participated multiple times in R&D Management conference, which helps in forming genuinely international networks. Next year the conference will be held in Pisa, Italy, and the theme will be biodiversity. The application for submitting abstracts for tracks will be open later this year.