Maria Tønnessen Frivold

Maria is a PhD Research Fellow at the Department of Working Life and Innovation. For the dissertation she is researching how the transformation of innovation systems can contribute to solving grand societal challenges. Her supervisor is Professor Arne Isaksen.

The research is centered around regional innovation, economic geography, and regional industrial development. Her interests deal with questions such as why industries in some regions perform and prosper better than in other regions, and what factors play into this. In their latest article, she and co-author Maren Songe Eriksen aimed to broaden the understanding of barriers to regional industrial development by focusing on the use and modification of the regional asset base.

Maria is a member of the research center RIST (Research centre for studies of innovation for sustainable transition) at UiA. She was a participant in the research project «Regional Resilience and Sustainable Industrial Restructuring» with the purpose of mapping and explaining the uneven economic resilience to the Covid-19-crisis in industries and regions. Additionally, she is a member of NORSI, the Nordic Research School in Innovation and Entrepreneurship. In addition to her research, she has been a lecturer on the master program in innovation and knowledge development in the courses ORG 503 Co-creation and innovation in the public sector and SV 411 Institutional economics.

She has a master’s degree in innovation and knowledge development from UiA. Her previous work experience includes working with business development in Agder Energi and being a part of Trainee Sør where she worked with business development in Grimstad municipality as well as strategy and project management at the University of Agder.