Passing on innovation experience

The Business Innovation profile area of the University of St.Gallen stages the annual Business Innovation Day in order to honour the achievements of HSG researchers and discuss the latest findings together with external experts from academia and practice.

At present, researchers of the profile area are looking for alternative approaches to the appraisal of research results. By way of a complement to publications in academic journals, the assessment of results in social networks should also play a part. Prof. Dr. Miriam Meckel and Prof. Dr. Christian Hoffmann presented initial approaches of the pilot project on the occasion of the Business Innovation Day on 4 April 2014.

Distinction for outstanding academic achievements

In the course of the Business Innovation Day, HSG researchers receive awards for outstanding contributions to the development of the profile area. Prizes are awarded for achievements in the categories of science, practice and public relations.

The Communication Impact Award is given to researchers whose work attracted particular attention in Swiss and international media. An external jury made up of the media representatives Patrik Müller (Schweiz am Sonntag), Kurt Bahnmüller (Handelszeitung) and Daniel Hanimann (formerly of Swiss Radio and Television) makes the decision concerning the award of the prize. The prize amounts to CHF 10,000.

The other prizes – the Junior Scientist Award, the Senior Scientist Award, the Managerial Impact Award and the Rigour and Relevance Award – are awarded for outstanding research and publication achievements, but also for successful third-party fund raising.

Passing on experience

In workshops, the prize winners pass on their experience to conference participants: how can you successfully place research results in reputable academic journals or raise third-party funds? Other researchers are given an opportunity to learn from the prize winners’ successes and also use this in their own work.

For an enterprise to be able to operate successfully in the market, it requires concerted and systematic innovation. The business IT specialist Prof. Dr. Walter Brenner and practice partner Dr. Thomas Schneider from UBS illustrated in their lecture how research results can be successfully applied in practice.

The Business Innovation profile area at the HSG is made up of more than 30 chairs of various institutes and subjects of the University of St.Gallen. The profile area aims to combine top-notch academic research with outstanding transfer achievements into practice in all the relevant fields of business innovation, such as product, process and business model innovations, as well as innovation culture.