What is VFT?

The ‘Verification for utilization’ (VFT) programme offers advice and potential funding to investigate how your research can be used outside of academia. In VFT, you can test your ideas and let them mature into concepts that have a more solid standing and a greater potential for further development.

What's an idea?

In the VFT programme, we consider ‘ideas’ as a broad concept that encompasses many different types of utilization and application. You don´t need to have any clear plans – a vague idea about how your research can be used to add value in other ways than through continued research is all you need to fill in the idea description form.

Why should I apply?

Verification gives you important insights into the area that your research is relevant for, as well as contact with external actors. This can enrich your research and open up new possibilities for collaboration. Take the chance to find out how your idea can affect society, e.g. though the global goals for sustainable development. Read more about why you should apply for VFT here.

How does VFT work?

1. INTEREST FORM Send in a short description of your idea via this form. If you’d like to bounce ideas off us before you apply, you can find our contact details here, we´d be happy to guide you!

2. FIRST MEETING We look at your idea, and together we develop a hypothesis for who would be interested in your research, how they would use it, and why – a so called ‘utilization hypothesis’.

3. ACTIVITY PLAN We help you choose and plan activities that will help you gather important information about the application area and test the idea against external actors. Such activities can be funded through VFT.

4. ASSEMBLE IDEA TEAM We look into what competencies are needed to be able to verify whether your idea has the potential to meet real needs and solve relevant problems. The idea team is coached through the verification process by one of our innovation advisors.

5. DEVELOPMENT The idea team handles the results from the activities and decides what the next step is. Step 4 and 5 are often performed in several iterative rounds of plan-test-assess, in order to mature and develop the idea.

6. RESULTS If your solution is desired and matches a big enough need, there is potential for sustainable continued development. Then we can help you move on to the next step and, if needed, help you apply for funding.

When should I apply for VFT and why?

When you want to influence society in a more proactive way

Can your research contribute to changes in policy or other positive changes e.g. authorities, politicians, organizations or citizens? Do you feel that it´s hard to reach them and see that it has effect?

It is often hard for organizations outside academia to take up and incorporate insights from research through publications or reports – you need to be proactive and informed, and target their need. Through VFT, we can identify your target groups, what their needs look like, and how you can encourage them to take up your research and understand how to make use of it in their work.

When you want to know whether your methods work outside academia

Does your research lead to you evaluating or developing new ways of working, guidelines, organizational forms, etc. Do you wish to identify external organizations to test them with?

Often, such investigative work leads to collaborations where you have the opportunity to test the relevance of your research in pilot scale within an organization. This increases the possibility that external actors will implement your solution, which can prove beneficial for both your utilization and research aims.

When you want to develop pharmaceuticals, diagnostics or med tech

Do your research results show potential for utilization within life science-related areas? Do you want to know how you can facilitate and enable development of a treatment, a new diagnostic tool or a medical product?

Our expert support can provide you with an overview of patenting possibilities, regulatory demands, necessary development steps, potential collaboration partners and other critical issues within life science innovation.

When you want to conduct a pilot project or build a prototype

Do you have research results or new methods which you know work in lab scale, but which you would like to scale up and test? Do you have an idea about e.g. a tool, an app, or an appliance which you would like to test with actual users? Do you work with an isolated part of an industrial process that you would like to test in a real situation?

We can help you prepare for and perform smaller pilot projects, and to identify the right partners and funding resources for larger, applied projects.

Before you write funding applications

To an increasing extent, research funding agencies want to see plans for how you will ensure that your research results will come to good use and benefit society. The more realistically and substantially you can describe the next step towards implementation, the greater the chance that you will be granted funding.

The research advisors and innovation advisors at the Grants and Innovation Office have extensive experience in working together to support your application, e.g. through external investigations and activities that strengthen your plan for dissemination, implementation and innovation. Remember to contact us early – already when starting to plan to apply, to make the best use of our support!