Democratisation of Academic Content (Stage 2)
| Reference number | |
| Coordinator | SciFree AB |
| Funding from Vinnova | SEK 900 000 |
| Project duration | April 2020 - December 2020 |
| Status | Completed |
| Venture | Innovative Startups |
| Call | Innovative Startups step 2 spring 2020 |
Important results from the project
SciFree AB is a start-up with the vision to democratise academic content. We want more people to have access to more qualitative research for free. Within this project, we established our vision with the commercial launch of the Open Access Journal Search tool to 27 Universities all over Sweden. We then were able to build in/ scale new features to allow for Free Open Access Publishing that is will be tested and negotiated with our customers. Our implementation and our focus on customers’ needs, through the help of this grant, turned our ideas into a commercial business.
Expected long term effects
Within the framework of this project, we commercially launched the SciFree platform (27 Swedish Universities). By expanding our design team, we were able to upgrade our platform with new UX-analytics and features for increased user friendliness and customisation. We were also able to promote SciFree´s vision of available academic content through lectures, seminars and the development of market-adapted communication material. We also developed long-term strategies for customer engagement, brand profiling, sales and customer satisfaction that promote our vision
Approach and implementation
The Project had three activities: Activity 1: we sold to 27 Universities and Colleges and began selling outside of Sweden. We also discovered that the need for the services was so great that our customers could not wait for a full launch but requested launches of minor sub-functionality as soon as possible. Activity 2: we encountered a set back due to changes in software and services we initially integrated. Our team found new ways of implementing the functionalities needed. Activity 3: we developed and implemented a design based on the principles of Calm Technology.