CIMaR conference in full swing
Under måndagen inleddes en internationell konferens på Högskolan i Gävle med ett 80-tal deltagare från närmare 20 länder.
Participants at the international conference CIMaR, Consortium for International Marketing Research, which started at University of Gävle on Monday.
CIMaR stands for Consortium for International Marketing Research and is a meeting place for researchers in international business and marketing, who meet every year for an international conference. This year, the 31st conference is being organised and it is the first time it has been held in Sweden. It is undeniably prestigious that the conference has now come to the University of Gävle.
The theme this year is ‘Sustainable International Business: Being Resilient under new Realities’ and is about the resilience of international business in the face of changing global realities.
Vice-Chancellor Ylva Fältholm opened the conference and said that the theme of the conference fits well with the University's mission and strategy, which is about sustainability and addressing societal challenges.
Focus on the green transition
The first day of the conference focused on the green transition in industry and the keynote speaker was Martin Pei, Technical Director at the steel company SSAB. He explained how SSAB, together with LKAB and Vattenfall, has been working since 2016 to jointly develop and produce steel in a completely fossil-free production chain.
The technology, which is based on steel production using hydrogen gas as a reducing agent, is known as HYBRIT and has the potential to reduce Sweden's total carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 10 per cent, which is the proportion that SSAB currently accounts for with traditional carbon-based steel production. SSAB is now also introducing ‘green steel’ at production facilities in the US and Finland.
According to Mr Pei, customers are prepared to pay a little more for the sustainable steel and there are already over 50 customer partnerships worldwide.
The keynote speech was followed by a panel discussion with participants from the universities of Lund, Mälardalen and Birmingham, as well as company representatives from Sandvik, who discussed the topic of ethical challenges for multinational companies linked to sustainability and different competitive conditions.
Sandvik's Sustainability Director Mats Lundberg noted that nowadays there is no contradiction between sustainability and business, they are two sides of the same coin and a matter of course for Sandvik, according to him.
Martin Pei, CTO at steel producer SSAB, was one of the key note speakers and his lecture about fossil free steel production attracted a lot of attention.
The conference creates new contacts for HiG
Daniella Fjellström and Ehsanul Huda Chowdhury are researchers in business administration at the University of Gävle and hosts of the conference. They were very pleased that the conference is finally underway after a year of planning.
– The conference contributes to increased collaboration and international lustre. We want to highlight what's happening on this research front, and that's important for the University. Some 50 papers, research articles, will be presented and discussed, all of them dealing with current global challenges, says Daniella Fjellström.
– Some of the world's most prominent researchers in international business and marketing are here, which means that our researchers at HiG can develop their networks. We participated in the conference in Brazil last year and it led to many new contacts for us, including a new project. Here you can interact and perhaps be inspired to joint research applications and collaborations, says Ehsanul Huda Chowdury, who was the moderator on the first day.
Daniella Fjellström and Ehsanul Huda Chowdury, researchers in business administration at University of Gävle, and also organizers of the conference.
Passion and collegiality
One of the universities driving the CIMaR network is Georgia State University and one of the organisers from there is Cuneyt Evirgen and he was very happy that the conference has now come to Sweden.
Some of the participants at the CIMaR-conference.
– Scandinavia and Sweden are at the forefront of sustainability and the global challenges we face today, and SSAB gave us an example at the start of the conference, says Cuneyt Evirgen.
He finds it inspiring to meet all researchers in a global context.
– Our network is based on passion, friendship and collegiality. Here we discuss research, share ideas and hopefully we can make an impact, he explained.
The conference will take place in both Gävle and Stockholm and will alternate research presentations with company visits, for example to Sandvik Coromant and Alleima.
“Our network is based on passion, friendship and collegiality”, says Cuneyt Evirgen from Georgia State University.
There will also be time for cultural activities; towards the end of the first day, conference participants had the chance to experience Swedish folk dancing through the Rillen folk dance team, which created a midsummer atmosphere outside the Valhall auditorium.
A cultural experience during the first day of the conference was the folk dance team Rillen who created a traditional midsummer atmosphere outside the meeting hall.
Text: Tommy Löfgren
This page was last updated 2024-06-11