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KymiCatalyst

Local solutions for global challenges

KymiCatalyst brings together companies, RDI experts, and regional development actors to address challenges of international significance in Kymenlaakso region. The project pilots a novel co-creation operating model designed to support business renewal and strengthen the region’s innovation capacity.

A foundation for new national
and international RDI projects

Global solution concepts developed through collaboration

Companies in the Kymenlaakso region increasingly operate in the midst of global transformations and crises. KymiCatalyst responds to this need by piloting an operating model that connects local expertise and RDI activities with challenges of international relevance. During the project, solutions to these challenges are developed within multidisciplinary co-creation teams.

The development of solution concepts in collaborative teams and their subsequent refinement

  • raises the level of ambition in regional development,
  • supports business renewal and internationalisation, and
  • creates concrete pathways towards new RDI projects and company pilots.

The project also contributes to the renewal of Kymenlaakso’s economic structure by strengthening companies’ capacity to engage more ambitiously with global challenges and to develop new, employment-generating business activities in response to them.

Furthermore, the project’s themes are closely aligned with Xamk’s strategic focus on the digital economy, integrating, for example, artificial intelligence, transformations in the business environment, and emerging technologies across different industries into the proposed solutions.

As project outcomes the following will be generated:

3–5 internationally relevant solution concepts
A new operating model
Recommendations for institutionalising the operating model

Project

Project name:

KymiCatalyst – Local solutions for global challenges

Project duration: 1.1.–30.6.2026

Info

Lead partner: South-East Finland University of applied scienses
Focus area: Digital Economy
Research area: Creative industries, Digital business, Game technology and cybersecurity
Research centre: Digital Information Management Research Centre Digitalia
Impact goal: Entrepreneurship and high added value, Environment and sustainability, People and user orientation

Budget

Total budget: 22 900
EU part of the total budget: 16 030
Xamk part of the total budget: 6870

Contact

Phone
+358404869649
Email
Marianne.Heikkinen@xamk.fi
Department
Digitaalisen tiedonhallinnan tutk.keskus Digitalia
Marianne Heikkinen
Project Manager
+358404869649
Marianne.Heikkinen@xamk.fi