E72 #Ecosystem Builders “From Lab to Value Chain: Mission-Driven Carbon Capture” with CORC's Lasse Rosendahl & Alexia Jacobsen
In this podcast episode on turning research into societal value, host Søren Spanner Bach is joined by co-host Per Christensen of Black Swans Exist and guests Lasse Rosendahl, Director of CORC, and Alexia Jacobsen, Head of Innovation at CORC - the Novo Nordisk Foundation CO2 Research Center, headquartered in Aarhus with partner institutions across Europe and the US. The conversation centres on a deceptively simple question: what does it actually take to translate CO2 research into real-world impact when the value chain you need doesn't yet exist? Lasse and Alexia walk through the full journey - from TRL 1 microbe experiments exploring how to transform CO2 into methane, to a 200x scale-up pilot facility at Campus Viborg that is already testing market viability by exploring the sale of carbon credits and offtake products at pilot scale. A key theme throughout is that the TRL ladder is not linear: scaling up consistently surfaces new fundamental questions, sending research back down before moving forward again. Iteration is the design, not the exception. The bottleneck in commercializing carbon utilization is less about technology maturity and more about the near-complete absence of governmental verification frameworks for CCU and CCC in Europe - and the missing value chains that spin-outs need to survive. Alexia also introduces CORC's approach to impact measurement: rather than imposing performance indicators that produce what you measure rather than what you want, the team is developing key value measures in direct dialogue with researchers. And critically, the innovation team's role is to remove the administrative and legal obstacles from the researcher's path - so that scientists can stay focused on the science while still contributing to real-world impact. ⏱️ TIMESTAMPS 01:26 What Is CORC? — Mission, Funding and International Scope 04:11 Why CO₂ Research Matters — And What TRL Actually Means 06:45 TRL in Practice — From Lab-Scale Microbes to Pilot Reactors 10:42 The Real Bottleneck — Value Chains That Don’t Exist Yet 17:13 What Can Industry Do? — Spin-Ins, De-Risking and Ecosystem Building 21:57 Researcher KPIs vs Real-World Impact — How to Navigate Both 25:20 CORC’s Four Mission Streams — Interdisciplinary Design 29:01 Keeping Researchers Mission-Aligned — Annual Meetings and Shared Direction 35:00 What Europe Can Learn from the US — Entrepreneurship and Failure Culture 38:21 Coalition on Advancing Research Assessment — Rethinking Researcher Metrics 41:46 Selling Credits at Pilot Scale — Testing the Market Before It Exists 43:15 Excel ERIC — Sharing Infrastructure Across Europe 45:29 Why Aarhus? — Location, Ecosystem and Production Pipeline 46:41 Impact by 2028 — Technologies Out, Value Chains Built, Knowledge Compounded 50:14 Target Industries and Products — What CORC Is Looking For 💡 QUOTES "If we are not successful in bringing down atmospheric CO2 levels, it will have consequences — not for the planet, which will survive — but for the way we as humans inhabit the Earth." — Lasse "If the value chain is not there, we set spin-outs up to fail. That's essentially what we're doing." — Alexia Ideas for future podcast guests or themes? 💡 We want to co-create this podcast with you. We’d therefore love to hear your suggestions for future podcast guests, ecosystem builders, or deep tech themes. Feel free to share in a private message or leave a comment below 🙏🏼 (It's also ok to invite yourself 😉) Call to Action If this episode sparked your interest: Share it with someone working in science, startups, or innovation Follow the miniseries for more conversations with ecosystem builders
