Projects

AURORAL focuses on increasing connectivity and delivering a digital environment of smart objects interoperable services platforms able to trigger dynamic rural ecosystems of innovation chains, applications and services. Thus, AURORAL contributes to increase economic growth and create jobs in rural areas and to tackle significant societal challenges, contributes to overcoming digital divide between rural and urban areas and to develop the potential offered by increased connectivity and digitisation of rural areas. AURORAL digital environment is demonstrated by cost-efficient and flexible cross-domain applications through large-scale pilots in five European regions. It builds on an open, API-based, interoperable and federated Internet of Things (IoT) architecture and includes a reference implementation supporting flexible integration of heterogeneous services, bridging the interoperability gap of the smart object platforms and creating markets for services in rural areas.

Industrial Circular Economy in Lapland 2.0 strengthens the regional competitiveness of the industrial circular economy

in Lapland. The project is based on the systematic development work in Lapland in the 2010s, during which the

industrial circular economy took its position as one of the spearheads of the regional expertise in Lapland and as a

cornerstone of Smart specialisation strategy of Lapland. The Circular Economy Centre, established in Kemi in 2017,

has raised broad national and international interest.

The project paves way for new investments and business models in the field of circular economy. The project

strengthens the R&D, knowledge and innovation infrastructure, cooperation and networking. The main partners include

Digipolis, Lapland University of Applied Sciences, and Lappia. The activities are characterized by energy and material

efficiency, utilization of the latest relevant knowledge, and new business development. The expertise and networks of

Circular Economy Centre will also be utilized in the project.

The EU’s transition towards a circular and climate-neutral economy represents an economic and social necessity and an opportunity for businesses and citizens. The role of SMEs in this environment will be crucial. The EU-funded DigiCirc project will permit SMEs to leverage digital technology as a key enabler for innovative circular products, services and business models to meet the goals that EU circular economy policies set. The project will establish and coordinate the DigiCirc innovation network, bringing together a wide range of stakeholders. This ecosystem will establish the foundation for an integrated, dynamic and cross-border/sector open space for innovation performed through the DigiCirc accelerators that are managed by innovation specialists able to transform validated concepts into solid business models towards a commercial launch.

Raw materials are the basis of most industrial value chains. This is especially true for the industrial and metallic mining, construction, and related sectors. These industries are very important for our industrial, social, and technological progress in the European Union. A viable and responsible minerals and metals mining provides essential assets to our society’s sustainable development, and help us to promote innovation, growth, and a low-carbon, more circular economy. MINE.THE.GAP brings together SMEs from the raw materials and mining sector with companies that have solutions for a more digital, greener, and circular mining value chain. 

The project promotes industrial symbiosis, a concept for sustainable regional development, across the Baltic Sea region. The project establishes peer-to-peer exchange for industrial symbiosis practitioners. It develops new business and finance models and sets up the BSR Industrial Symbiosis Council as a platform for dialogue and policy learning.

The objective of the project is to enhance the sustainable growth and innovation of the Finnish circular economy. The project gathers regional and national resources and partnerships that promote expertise into a national platform of expertise, which is designed to increase business in the industrial circular economy, grow the number of jobs, develop expertise in the circular economy and disseminate it in Finland as part of the post-COVID economic recovery measures.
The project strengthens existing partnerships related to eco-industrial parks and creates new connections between companies and education and research organisations (universities).

Hydrogen- opportunities for Kemi region project aims to describe the possibilities and timetable of the transition to hydrogen economy especially from the viewpoint of Sea Lapland (Meri-Lappi). The project assists companies in allocating resources towards the hydrogen business, including proper timing of actions. The project improves the possibilities of the companies in region to participate and even act as forerunners in the energy transition.
The project provides a knowledge base on hydrogen economy and related investments, including descriptions of relevant investment plans in Nordic countries. The project gathers the SMEs of the Sea Lapland region to utilize the opportunities of the hydrogen economy and to encourage cooperation between the SMEs.

The project seeks a solution to the challenges of sustainable growth of SMEs. The results of the PK_kasvu project financed by ELY centre have been used in the planning of the project. In the SME growth project, a growth survey was carried out to find out the growth ability, willingness to grow and factors affecting the companies in Kemi, Keminmaa
and Simo. As a result of the project, industry-specific summaries were obtained, on the basis of which it was possible to plan future growth-supporting measures for companies in the region. Active discussion between the municipalities of Kemi, Keminmaa and Simo has been utilized in the planning of the project. The direct effects of the SME growth project are related to obtaining information from the business field. The project created an overall picture of the services that are available to companies through public operators. The results can be used to better plan and target future measures and, in the best case, to avoid overlapping measures. As a result of the project's interviews, a sector-specific situational picture of the region's companies was obtained, although the participating companies were few compared to the total number of companies.

The goal of the project is to provide companies with know-how and the ability to develop their operations so that they can respond to current and future changes in the operating environment in a sustainable way. Sustainability is examined and developed at the company level through social, environmental and economic perspectives. Sudden
structural change and other crises in the operating environment (coronavirus and energy) are highlighted in the project's goals and so on in the measures.

The project's target group is SMEs and micro-enterprises in Kemi, Keminmaa and Simo, which have suffered/are under pressure to change, due to the sudden structural change in the region and the corona and energy crisis.

Sea-Lapland sustainable growth website

Digipolis in Kemi, Finland and Kunnskapsparken Helgeland (KPH) in Mo i Rana in Norway operates a NPA Preparatory project “CircUpscale” to gather a Project Consortium and to prepare for a full scale NPA project on promoting industrial circular economy in the NPA area. CircUpscale has a specific focus on finding and developing transnational methods, tools, and practices to upscale circular economy initiatives and pilots. CircUpscale preparatory project will result in a high quality Main project in order to fully utilize the potential of the target groups of the project such as the SMEs, local/regional/national public authorities, R&D actors, and business support organisations. CircUpscale will have a positive impact on transforming production processes in the NPA region towards more circular solutions.

The CircUpscale approach invites NPA actors of circular economy to benchmark and jointly develop industrial circular economy and to cross-fertilize innovative ideas across the NPA area. CircUpscale is a new and original attempt to provide a knowledge exchange platform on industrial circular economy in an NPA context - with focus on upscaling the initiatives. The project will take into account many of the territorial challenges of the NPA area, such as lack of critical mass of potential customers, long distances, and need to
find solutions that specifically could be implemented in the sensitive nature environments in the north.

The core of the Lapland Industrial Circular Economy Accelerator project lies in the development, testing, and implementation of an acceleration lane model in Lapland, as well as identifying and adapting opportunities provided by the circular economy for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Lapland, utilizing the functions of expert and higher education development environments.