Exploitation and impact motivations are weak without including the digital transition

The digital transition has many dimensions. The important aspect is how you consider and develop it within your own research context. That makes it relevant and why capacity building is individual. Each researcher’s case has a unique combination of topic, interests, and circumstances. The capacity building therefore includes mentoring feedback for career progression.

Data-Driven Value Creation for the Digital Transition has two tracks. They share a common base but content is adapted to suit each track. The research track focuses on exploitation and impact creation aligned with the specific research area, while the green technology track also covers how a technology can mature toward higher technology readiness levels in alignment with business readiness and co-investment.

The digital transition is no longer optional.

Data must be shared. Storing data is required to evidence published results. Machine learning and AI make better use of data for faster research progress but should not be developed in isolation. Your research is part of a value chain that can only optimise through shared data. Research outputs will need to consider regulations such as Digital Product Passports and data spaces, which require data to be shared. In the EU there is the green and digital (twin) transition.

Since you are already required to store data and will share it, this can be used to position your research and career progression. How you present your data and digital transition case demonstrates realistic exploitation pathways and credible impact aims. This is necessary for motivating how your research will be more useful than ny publications and conference presentations. Strong publications and h-index alone are no longer sufficient. Research that includes exploitation pathways and impact creation which include a digital transition offers a competitive advantage in future funding — including the next Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, FP10 (2028–2034).

The FP10 is currently being framed, and European stakeholders are setting clear expectations. The European Round Table for Industry recently published the joint declaration stating that FP10 should ensure fundamental research reaches deployment and scale-up, translating research excellence into market-ready innovations that boost productivity. The declaration calls for support across the full chain from discovery to real-world application, aligned with EU strategic priorities including the green and digital transitions and European security and resilience. Read the “Joint Declaration for a Bold FP10: Investing in Research, Development and Innovation to Boost European Productivity and Competitiveness“.

Insights from EU funding and innovation agency Nexuswelt present that the future programme is more connected to Europe’s competitiveness, technology leadership and real-world impact. The FP10 will reward early positioning, strong consortia, credible impact pathways and a clear contribution to European added value. This stronger competitiveness logic includes the important change to include aim to help Europe transform research and innovation results into solutions, products, services, industrial value chains and market-ready technologies. A central idea behind the future programme is the need to close Europe’s innovation gap. Europe is strong in science and collaborative research, but too often research results do not move quickly enough towards demonstration, deployment, scale-up and investment. The FP10 is therefore expected to support a more coherent innovation-to-investment journey. This means that future projects will need to demonstrate not only scientific and technical quality, but also a credible route towards use, uptake and value creation. A key challenge will be to create coherence between low-TRL research, high-TRL development and real-world deployment.

Your research and career will benefit from building capacity to present realistic exploitation pathways and credible impact aims

The Data-Driven Value Creation for the Digital Transition is a capacity building by Mikael Syväjärvi who has more than 20 years of experience from international technology transfer, start-up creation and research-to-business activities. This experience forms the basis for his SME, Alminica AB, which contributes to European research projects with transfer of knowledge for impact and exploitation from research and innovation towards business and sustainability. Recent examples include the EU FET Open project SiComb (2020–2024) and the EIC Pathfinder project rePowerSiC (2024–2028). He is accepted as a mentor in the two European Innovation Council (EIC) 2026 programmes EIC Tech to Market and EIC Women Leadership. These activities support researchers and innovators in areas such as value proposition development, early-stage commercial thinking, leadership development, and strategic reflection on future opportunities arising from research and innovation.