Participation

Through the Serve programme, Tekes provides funding for research, development and innovation projects focusing on the development of new service concepts and novel business models. Finnish companies and public research organisations as well as foreign entities registered in Finland are eligible for Tekes funding.

Serve provides various services to the programme participants. These include practical tools and guides to service development and benchmarking of good practices in service business. Through disseminating knowledge created in the programme, Serve also activates new companies in the field of service innovation.

Serve encourages practical cooperation and networking between private companies and public research organisations. The goal is to create good practices for collaboration between academia and companies in the field of service innovation.

How to join Serve

Companies operating in Finland can apply for funding at any time. Academic institutions must abide by the annual application periods.

Serve promotes cooperation between Finnish and international research groups. International cooperation not only includes benchmarking and networking
but also joint research projects, subcontracting, technology transfer and collaboration in marketing and distributing the project results.

The programme organises opportunities for building partnerships between programme participants and foreign research groups and companies. These
opportunities include, for example, study visits and seminars organised together with foreign partners.

Serve actively creates collaboration between similar service innovation programmes and initiatives in the European Union. Serve encourages open cooperation between different countries in the area of service innovation and is interested in joint projects, especially in the area of academic research.