Julia Roelofsen

Julia has been working at Hochschule Rhein-Waal as an Innovation Manager since November 2024. 

She has around 20 years of international business experience, with responsibilities spanning sales and marketing, innovation management and consulting project management. 

Early in her career, she focused on local and regional innovation ecosystems, including science and technology parks, business incubation, cluster development and regional innovation policy. Building on practical expertise gained in Finland, she contributed to international development and research projects, sharing best practices and lessons learned across different professional and academic forums. 

Prior to joining Hochschule Rhein-Waal, Julia spent a decade working within global innovation ecosystems, supporting R&D and innovation leaders in multinational corporations in developing technology scouting and open innovation programmes. These activities aimed to accelerate the development of new solutions and products, including those addressing sustainability challenges. 

At Hochschule Rhein-Waal, she is responsible for initiating and supporting collaboration between the university and companies in the Lower Rhine region. Her work focuses on creating and testing practical formats for knowledge and technology transfer. 

Research interests: innovation management, open innovation, collaborative innovation processes, innovation ecosystems, technology transfer, strategic foresight and digitalisation in innovation and business development.