Ingrid Kihlander new Adjunct Professor in Innovation Management

On October 9, Ingrid Kihlander started her position as Adjunct Professor in Innovation Management at the Department of Systems Science for Defence and Security at the Swedish Defence University.
– I want to contribute to a research environment with a strong foundation in innovation management, she says.

Ingrid Kihlander comes to the Swedish Defence University from the research institute Rise where she holds a position as senior researcher, with a special interest in innovation management systems and professionalization of innovation management.

"My main areas of interest are how to work with innovation more systematically and build sustainable innovation capacity", she says.

Developing innovation capacity across sectors

At Rise, she works with organizations and companies in different sectors that are developing their innovation capacity.

"A common theme in my work is to support innovation management. The main question is how to create innovation capacity. I think it is favourable to have a structure in place that provides opportunities and can be used for innovation methodically and over time."

Contributes with applied knowledge from the business world

One of the purposes of a university in-house adjunct professor is to bring applied knowledge and perspectives from the business world to research and education.

"This is about linking knowledge about innovation from business and industry to the defence sector", says Hans Liwång, Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Defence Systems.

In systems science for defence and security, the focus is on how the defence and security organizations can develop their capacity to carry out their tasks, what the Armed Forces often call capability development.

"Capability development contains several components in the areas of organizational development, doctrine development, and technology development. It is a challenge to bring these components together, especially in changing times like this. Innovation management is an area that encompasses several of these elements", says Hans Liwång.

Creating a research context for innovation management

Ingrid Kihlander wants to support an increase in innovation management research at the Swedish Defence University and bring her knowledge to research projects, especially in the field of defence systems.

"I will still have a part-time position at Rise, and I see opportunities to develop more collaborations and opportunities for, for example, industrial doctoral students. There may also be a need for research on innovation management in, for example, the Armed Forces, which I look forward to exploring. But I will start by reading up on the subject and talking to my new colleagues to get my bearings."

"Ingrid Kihlander has exactly the profile we are looking for with long experience from Swedish industrial companies and is anchored in the field both nationally and internationally, and an interest in further developing this research together with colleagues in defence systems. It is also great to be able to build on a collaboration that started many years ago when she supervised a Ph.D. student from the Swedish Armed Forces in innovation and fighter aircraft development", says Hans Liwång.

Josefin Svensson