A research center like CMM can generate value for the shareholders in many ways, by contributing to improved diagnostics, better health care, decreased
mortalities and hopefully healthier future generations. These values are of higher dignity than a traditional monetary reward but also take extended efforts to verify and assess. A financial report will not illustrate these efforts but an Intellectual Capital Report can illustrate how investments are transformed to other values.
Intellectual Capital can be defined as “knowledge that is of value to an organization” and is focused on future value-creating capabilities. CMM and other academic institutions are founded on knowledge, which is the most valuable capital. Without the people in the building, their comprehension of the human body and its diseases, their networks and their will to make new scientific discoveries, we would have little to show our investors.
The CMM model
In order to show how CMM is using its Intellectual Capital we have created a model which is seen above, and which illustrates the input, the work process and the result (for larger image, click on the picture).
The activities at CMM are influenced by goals from each individual researcher, society, the scientific community and different interest groups, all of which strive towards improving public health and healing common diseases. Based on this, CMM has defined four internal knowledge goals which aim at creating the best possible research results. The capital, divided into three subgroups; human capital, structural capital and relational capital, partakes in the key processes and the results are measured on a yearly basis (see further here). The short-term results—output—are the number of published papers or graduated students and are easy to present in hard numbers. The output may in time be transformed into mid-term results—outcome. The outcome is new diagnostic methods, new treatments or new spin-off companies, which are harder to account for on a yearly basis since they evolve slowly. The long-term results—impact—are most important and hardest to measure since they often combine many factors and the results might show up years later. The impact can be explained as the effects the research has on the society healthcare system and its costs, by transferring knowledge about new preventive or predicting methods, treatments and medications.
During the last decade CMM has been building an impressive research platform in Sweden, with extended reach beyond our own staff, into international networks, knowledge areas and research processes. The replacement value of building such an acknowledged CMM laboratory platform is huge. This platform can also be a basis for shaping new Global Research Collaboration Alliances, to the benefit of mankind.
The growth potential of CMM has initiated an international expansion. Based on the CMM platform new steps are now in progress to find partners on a global scale, among others in China.