“Accelerating Green Transformation of the Manufacturing Industry – How Can Student-Business Collaborations Help?”

Olof Hjelm is a professor and head of Environmental Technology and Management at Linköping University, Sweden. The research group is a transdisciplinary group of more than 50 colleagues turning sustainability challenges into opportunities. His research is about how companies are stimulated and supported to innovate and how environmental innovations can bring economic and societal development. Special emphasis has been on export and international diffusion of environmental innovations and how environmental technologies can contribute to sustainable societal transitions. He teaches engineering students in environmental technology, corporate environmental management, and environmentally driven business development. Students are often doing real life projects together with companies and organisations and he has developed several innovative approaches for student-business collaborations in green venturing. For more than twenty years Professor Hjelm has collaborated with regional business support organisations in supporting small businesses around sustainable strategy and product development and he holds important positions in the regional support system for eco-innovation.