MatchUp – Bridging needs and innovations

The construction and real estate sector faces significant challenges.

Digitalisation, climate requirements, and new business models are driving the need for innovation, yet despite substantial investments, many solutions never reach full implementation.

The problem is not a lack of ideas but rather a lack of structures to connect innovations with the right stakeholders and ensure their practical use.

A structural weakness is that industry actors need to strengthen their ability to both formulate their needs and evaluate and manage innovations.MatchUp is a strategic project within Smart Built Environment that addresses this challenge by creating systematic interactions between stakeholders and innovators.

The overarching goal is to ensure that innovations developed and tested in previous Smart Built Environment projects progress further and contribute to real change in the industry.The project is based on the principle "Fall in love with the problem, not the solution" – starting with understanding and defining needs before searching for solutions.

This approach leverages the existing pressure for change within the sector, increasing the likelihood of actual implementation.

To achieve this, MatchUp combines two perspectives: Market pull, which focuses on identifying and clarifying real needs among property owners, construction companies, architects, and other stakeholders, and Technology push, which connects these needs with innovative solutions developed within Smart Built Environment projects, with a particular emphasis on digitalisation and systematisation.The project is carried out in five phases: (1) Preparatory work – mapping stakeholders, developing methodologies, and identifying needs. (2) Onboarding – supporting stakeholders in defining their challenges and assessing their capacity to adopt innovations. (3) Matching – connecting needs with relevant innovations and preparing meetings. (4) Events – conducting three matchmaking events where stakeholders meet innovators for concrete discussions on potential collaborations.

Finally, (5) Evaluation, both immediately after the events and several months later, to assess the project´s impact.Stakeholders such as property owners, construction companies, and municipalities receive support in defining and articulating their challenges and gain access to solutions that address them.

Innovators, including start-ups, technology providers, and researchers, are provided with a structured pathway to stakeholders actively seeking innovations.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) benefit both as innovators and stakeholders by gaining better networks, lower barriers to entry, and stronger business opportunities.MatchUp creates conditions for more innovations to be implemented, leading to increased productivity and efficiency in the construction sector, improved information flows and stronger collaboration, reduced climate impact through faster dissemination of sustainable innovations, as well as new business models and enhanced opportunities for SMEs.

The project tests a matchmaking methodology that, in the long term, can be scaled up and established as a permanent part of the industry´s operations. It will therefore also propose possible business and ownership models for such a permanent structure.

By enabling innovations to move from the testing phase to real-world implementation, MatchUp contributes to a more innovative, sustainable, and competitive construction sector.