Elena Bou, from academia to business to drive the energy transition

Elena Bou is an associate professor in the Department of Operations Management and Innovation at Esade and cofounder of EIT InnoEnergy. She was recently honored with the first Nobel sustainability award. Presented to her by the Nobel Sustainability Trust and the Technical University of Munich, this award recognizes her work in sustainable energy research and development, and more specifically, the contribution that EIT InnoEnergy has made to promoting green energy in European startups. 

Since she joined Esade in 1998, Bou's career path has not followed a straight line. Her research work began in knowledge management at a time when academic groups on innovation were yet to be formed. As co-founder of the research group GRACO, nowadays the Institute for Innovation and Knowledge Management (IIK), she was one of the pioneers in driving research on innovation.  

Interdisciplinary efforts

In the mid-2000s, the EU faced the so-called ‘European paradox’: it was a leading region in knowledge creation, but it lagged behind the US in translating this knowledge into practice. “Unlike in the US, knowledge hubs in Europe are widely scattered. There was a need to bring them together in an innovation cluster with an efficient and effective system of governance,” Bou observes.  

With this objective, in 2007 she led a research project on sustainable energy and climate with which the European Commission sought to lay the foundations for the future energy transition. In this undertaking, it was essential for engineers and social scientists to work together, since engineers could provide technical knowledge about sustainable solutions, but were unfamiliar with the areas of management and innovation. 

Unlike in the US, knowledge hubs in Europe are widely scattered

“It was a really beautiful journey and a challenge, not just in terms of the end result, but because our scientific logic was totally different,” Bou explains. Often, she would try to translate the ins and outs of management into mathematical formulae to ensure that the interdisciplinary group of professionals spoke the same language. 

The project focused on research into innovation networks, a field halfway between the closed structure of the company and the open nature of the market to which, at that time, organizational theory had not yet paid much attention. Following the analysis of 63 research networks, a governance model was developed to drive the energy transition under the umbrella of the recently formed European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). 

The results of their model highlighted the need to manage the innovation ecosystem in a corporate governance mode. In the US, the governance of these ecosystems is much more organic: the clusters are disorganized, but located in the same physical space. The differential factor in the case of Europe is the application of centralized management to a European cluster formed by dislocated nodes. The upshot was the creation of EIT InnoEnergy, a truly unique initiative. “At first we encountered a lot of skepticism because nothing like this existed: an innovation ecosystem managed by a company. But we were willing to explore, to risk” Bou says. 

From academia to practice

Following a logic of constant innovation, EIT InnoEnergy set out by exploring new forms of management. One of its key initiatives was to introduce an equity transfer model. Instead of charging startups for its service, the company acquires a holding, with a percentage of future profits, thereby supporting founders of early-stage startups who are taking a big risk. “The equity model tells them we are right behind them with regard to the risk they are taking,” Bou declares.  

In addition to funding, the company provides a route map with progressive objectives. “The 200 people who work at EIT InnoEnergy help the entrepreneurs to turn their company into a unicorn [a startup valued at more than one billion dollars], conquering new markets and enabling them to survive,” the professor explains.  

Following this logic, and given its knowledge of European innovation networks, with focal points scattered all over the continent, EIT InnoEnergy is capable of helping an energy startup take off in record time. Very quickly, it can gauge the potential of a Swedish entrepreneur seeking to generate marine energy, provide them with connections in Portugal to carry out a pilot test, bring in the required technology from a Polish university, and find specialized workers through the company's talent access service. 

EIT InnoEnergy originated from a research project and is proving successful in the green energy market

After helping 500 startups in the green energy sector, today its investment portfolio consists of 185 companies, with a survival rate of 92% and 4 of them have become unicorns. Above all, Bou highlights the capacity of these companies to reduce the European carbon footprint. Potentially, EIT InnoEnergy's portfolio can contribute to a reduction in CO2 emissions of 1.1 gigatons a year by 2030 (EU emissions totaled 3.3 gigatons in 2021). 

“The beautiful thing is that it was simply something we decided to try. The company emerged in the field of research, it has been run according to criteria of excellence, and it is yielding good results,” Bou observes. At present, it continues to draw on its academic roots to respond to the practical needs it faces in the day to day. For example, the professor comments that the knowledge generated at Esade is key to pinpointing the entrepreneurship skills required by the founders of energy startups. 

Towards a global change 

The year 2023 was the hottest since records began. For a few days in November, the two-degree threshold was breached, with temperatures rising to more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels. This does not mean that we have failed to achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement, but it is a reminder of how close we are to breaking it. “All around us, people are saying we have a problem, and despite this, 2023 was the year in which CO2 emissions were higher than ever around the world,” Bou warns. 

“However, we are optimistic, because the results of innovation are already visible. Since 2010, the number of climate tech companies has increased fourfold. There are some very smart, highly motivated people taking on an entrepreneurial role to solve the problem,” Bou points out. But the big challenge lies in scaling the technological solutions.  

Energy transitions drive new economic models and new values

“We have an implementation problem. The technology exists, but the market is finding the numbers just don't add up,” Bou observes. Despite this, EU countries are in a good position to accelerate the change. “Thanks to the current regulation in Europe, if any of the Member States want to progress with the energy transition, they already have the goals, the instruments, and the funding. All the conditions are favorable,” she insists. 

In Bou's view, every energy transition in the course of history has been followed by a different economic model and new values. “Energy is the lungs of society,” she claims. The change in mentality must take place “not only in academic institutions, but also throughout the management community.”  

In this respect, operations and product designs focused on manufacture or consumption must now address recyclability and the principles of a clean economy. “Either we must begin to see everything differently, with a new economic model and some different values, or we can forget about our survival. A better incentive would be hard to find,” the professor concludes.