The New Service Economy - KK-stiftelsen

The New Service Economy
• CTF has good connections to Swedish companies, and in the NSE profile
only Swedish companies were allowed to participate. But in the future
CTF should look to become more visible to international companies.
CTF should use their excellent networks to find international partners
as financiers of the projects not only in kind but also in money.
• The review panel do not believe Karlstad University has leveraged the
Knowledge Foundation investment in CTF to the extent they should
have. The mindset of Karlstad University appears to be to invest a
minimal amount university funds into CTF since funding has been selfgenerated
and provided by the Knowledge Foundation. The attitude
from the University therefore poses a future challenge for CTF’s sustainability.
• One may be a little pessimistic about CTF’s possibilities of getting
Swedish public financing in the future. Since the Swedish government
has launched a research strategy with 26 new themes and service is not
one of them, we question the willingness of the Swedish government to
support growth potential in service research.
• There is no clear strategy for communication to the public via mass media
or to political or industrial decision-makers (outside of the partnerfirms).
Therefore the review panel recommends that CTF create a more
clear information and communication strategy in the future to ensure a
wide diffusion of the research results to Swedish, and perhaps international,
firms. This strategy should include the appointment of a person
responsible for the information and communication strategies.
1. University profile and scientific quality
The number of journal publications and conference proceedings that have
resulted from the projects funded by the Knowledge Foundation is quite
good. Indeed, at the beginning of the funding period the plan was for the
completion of 5 Ph.D. dissertations, 25 articles in scientific (peer-reviewed)
journals, 25 conference presentations, and 2 books. At the end of the funding
period, the results in each category were much greater than expected:
12 Ph.D. dissertations, 51 journal articles, 96 conference presentations, and
9 books. Many of the journal publications have been in international (English-based)
journals, and most of the conference papers at international conferences.
Nearly all of these publications and presentations are related to
services, and thus are consistent with both CTF’s focus and one of Karlstad
University’s three profiles—on services. Thus, the funding of these projects
by the Knowledge Foundation has helped to boost the research profile of
both CTF and of Karlstad University on an international level.
While the review team is impressed by the number of publications resulting
for the profile research, the quality of the publication outlets is generally
not as high as it could be. It would appear that perhaps quality of the re-
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