This paper scrutinizes cooperation projects between universities and companies. The well-functioning links between universities and companies and knowledge transfer in supporting the economic growth are becoming increasingly more important. One link between universities and companies by means of which the knowledge transfer can take place is cooperation projects. The formation of the cooperation projects and objectives of the stakeholders as well as possibilities to clarify these objectives in order to promote and facilitate the cooperation projects are discussed in the paper. As an example, the concept and process of formation of cooperation projects of Innovation and Business Centre MEKTORY of Tallinn University of Technology are described.

Troubleshooting process is often used to diagnose the cause of failed products in the production systems. This method is employed to repair rejected products and to find root causes of problems so that failed products can be usable again. Troubleshooting is one of the most important ways of identifying symptoms of specific problem in a product and also helps to provide remedial action regarding the causes of those symptoms. This research aims to analyze a troubleshooting process and provide enhancement in decision making procedure of troubleshooters which leads to increase the overall productivity of production process. A framework for business process improvement and data cleaner application are developed for this purpose that facilitates to improve the quality of data, quality of decision making process of troubleshooters and reduce the waste of materials. Moreover, AS-IS analysis of troubleshooting process is made based on that analysis TO-BE process flow is also described while a data cleaner application is developed to support the TO-BE process. The outcome of this research is mainly beneficial for manufacturing industry, however further studies may expand the findings to other streams such as service industry.

Innovative financial instruments, in the context of the funding schemes of the European Union, are different from funding by way of direct subsidies. These financial instruments can be divided in two large groups: instruments offering risk capital and equity capital and debt instruments. The instruments help to engage resources from the private sector in projects which might be considered too risky without the said instruments and the implementation of which would be impossible or related to significantly higher expenses for the promoter of the project. As seen from Estonia’s perspective, up until now the use and impact of innovative financial instruments have generally met the expectations. In view of the diversity of areas and target groups of the innovative financial instruments planned within the framework of European Union’s Financial Framework 2014-2020, it may be presumed that several new instruments will be successfully implemented in Estonia.

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