Work Package 4 (WP4) of the FREIIA project aims to empower student-driven sustainable entrepreneurship across European island communities. Through fieldwork, interviews, co-creation workshops, and AI-supported qualitative analysis, students collaborate with local stakeholders to identify challenges, explore opportunities, and co-develop solutions that contribute to sustainability transitions.
Today, Dr Gunnar Andersson had the privilege of representing the Innovation Research Group as one of four panelists during the Annual PhD Day at Østfold University College. Our discussion focused on interdisciplinary research—its meanings, challenges, and opportunities across different fields.
We are proud to have participated in the NEON 2025 conference where Dr Gunnar Andersson discussed insights on interstitial spaces based on a cross-departmental project in public services.
We are proud to have participated in the NEON 2025 conference where Eivind A. Leister shared insights from the Interreg FREIIA project with an international audience.
Trude Tonholm presented the paper Preparing Social Work Students for Workplace Violence: Insights from a Norwegian Study at ICERI 2025. Social workers often face challenging and sometimes dangerous situations in their professional lives. A recent study at Østfold University College explores how future social workers perceive the risk of violence and how education can better prepare them for these realities.
We are pleased to introduce Trude Tonholm, PhD candidate in Digitalization and Society and University Lecturer at the Department of Welfare, Leadership and Organization at Høgskolen i Østfold.
We are proud to have participated in the international conference ICERI2025 – 18th International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation, where Dr Gunnar Andersson and Dr Frode Ramstad Johansen shared key findings from the Interreg FREIIA project with an international audience.
Frode Ramstad Johansen presented EXPERIMENTAL PROJECT-BASED LEARNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION: LEARNING BY DOING IN THE FREIIA PROJECT at the institute of engineerings Research Lunch Program Friday 7 November. The full paper will be presented at the ICERI conference in Sevilla later in November.
In this series of posts, we look back at the various actions on Hvaler in Norway, Koster in Sweden, Bornholm in Denmark, Schiermonnikoog in the Netherlands, and Groix and Ouessant in France – the islands that are part of the Interreg FREIIA project. In October, the FREIIA project carried out a new visit to the Koster Islands, where students worked on sustainable development through concrete innovation processes. The stay was organized over four days and aimed to develop proposals for Inter-Island Product and Brand Development – solutions that can strengthen collaboration, visibility, and value creation between the islands in the project.
Trustworthy AI Lab med Pedro Kringen deltok denne uken på konferansen “Shaping the Future of Medical Decisions – A Symposium on AI in Healthcare” ved Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences i Göttingen.
Bestill en forsker! Som del av Forskningsdagene 2025 tilbyr Høgskolen i Østfold smakebiter av forskning til næringsliv og offentlige aktører under Forskningsdagene. IRG stilte med Gunnar Andersson og Lean-workshopen: Hvordan kan du tilrettelegge for læring og utvikling på arbeidsplassen på fagdagen for staben ved Sykehuset Østfold fredag 10. oktober.
9. oktober 2025 markerte vi en spesiell dag ved Høgskolen i Østfold: Vår kjære kollega John-Erik Andreassen gikk over i pensjonistenes rekker – men ikke uten å ha med seg et sterkt faglig momentum inn i neste fase. Samtidig er han i sluttfasen av sitt PhD-løp ved Universitetet i Stavanger, med avhandlingen "On Autopoiesis: The Bridge from Biology to Strategic Management."
On 17–18 September, partners from the Interreg North Sea project FREIIA gathered at University West in Trollhättan, Sweden. The two-day meeting provided an arena for collaboration, knowledge exchange, and discussions on ongoing and future activities within the project.
The IRG Symposium 2025 on Facilitating Resilience Embracing Islands Innovation is supported by the Interreg FREIIA project on location at Strømtangen lighthouse part of The lighthouse workshop for environment, tourism and innovation.
Hvordan kan store forskningsprosjekter brukes som læringsarenaer for studenter – og samtidig styrke koblingen mellom utdanning, forskning og næringsliv?
Enabling Open Innovation through Self-Organized Business Models by John-Erik Andreassen* and Gunnar Andersson is published in the Proceedings from the XXXVI ISPIM Innovation Conference held in Bergen 15 - 18 June 2025.
On Wednesday 18.06.2025 John-Erik Andreassen presented the paper “Enabling Open Innovation through Self-Organized Business Models” at the ISPIM 2025 in Bergen.
Interreg FREIIA project presented at the EXPO 2025 at Østfold Science Center Inspiria in Sarpsborg. Jenny Louise Helt, Sofie Guldberg Gretland adn Patrick Kakis Gabrielsen presented their work from january to june as processleader, project manager and data & Digitalization analyst for the research project.
IRG and Interreg FREIIA researchers presented the short paper Fostering Resilience and Innovation in Island Communities - Insights from the Interreg FREIIA project (Andersson, Hauge) at the 7TH INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE IN DEVELOPMENT STUDIES, May 29, 2025, in Tbilisi, Georgia (online presentation)
The Innovation Research Group (IRG) was established in 2014 to conduct and disseminate high-quality research in innovation. To achieve its mission, IRG is committed to organise academic writing workshops and symposia. Special theme in the 9th academic writing workshop was manuscripts for international peer reviewed journals based on the Interreg FREIIA project.
