Jakob Trischler has been promoted to associate professor in Business Administration at ¹û¶³´«Ã½. His research revolves around user involvement in innovation activities – how citizens can be an innovation source in sustainability transitions.
Congratulations to the promotion, Jakob! Can you tell us about your research?
– Thank you! My research looks at issues around user involvement in innovation activities. I look at questions such as how users can become co-designers within an innovation team, how an organisation can open up its processes to users, or how policy makers can facilitate the conditions that allow citizens to develop and share their innovations. My research provides guidance for project teams, organisations and policy makers in what it takes to actively involve users in innovation activities. In addition, I investigate how to unlock citizens’ potential as innovation sources. Doing so, I argue, is very important in order to address prevailing sustainability challenges related to unsustainable consumption, healthcare and inequality, among other things.
What is your current research focus?
– At the moment, I focus on exploring different ways of reducing household food waste. Since problems related to household food waste are most closely related to citizens, my argument is that this should also be the starting point when developing solutions to this prevailing sustainability problem. I am therefore busy creating awareness of the important contributions citizens can make, as well as working on ways to enable citizens to collaboratively develop and share innovations. Related to this topic, I have, together with researchers at CTF and University of Vaasa, recently published an article.
How did your research journey begin?
– I completed my PhD in 2015, at Southern Cross University in Australia, and moved to Sweden in 2017 to start my postdoctoral journey at CTF. I found the open and multidisciplinary research environment at CTF very inspiring and decided to stay. Over the last five years, I have established an international network with researchers from many different countries and backgrounds, which makes research even more interesting and fun!
What are your plans for the future?
– While I will continue working on my research topics at CTF, I will also focus more on mentoring PhD students. I often reflect on my own PhD journey and what a fantastic supervisory team I had. I hope that I will be able to support current and future PhD candidates in a similar way. In addition to research, I will contribute to the development, coordination and delivery of different courses at ¹û¶³´«Ã½ Business School.
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