Two new PhD students join the Danish Innovation Index research team at Aarhus University
On 1 September 2026, Blanka Tóth and Yushu Li joined the Danish Innovation Index research team at the Department of Management, Aarhus University.
Their PhD projects are part of the Carlsberg Foundation-funded Semper Ardens: Accelerate project “Decoding Danish Firm Innovativeness from the Consumer Perspective.” The grant, awarded in 2025 to Associate Professor Darius-Aurel Frank at Aarhus University, establishes the Danish Innovation Index as a research excellence group dedicated to understanding why Danish firms are perceived as innovative and how these insights can support future innovation.
The two PhD projects address complementary dimensions of this research agenda:
digital and commercial innovation, and
responsible innovation.
Drawing on the Danish Innovation Index database, consumer behaviour experiments, and other research methods, the projects aim to generate insights that can contribute to more responsible, inclusive, and sustainable innovation.
Blanka Tóth, PhD Student, Aarhus University
Blanka Tóth
Blanka Tóth is a PhD student at the Department of Management, Aarhus BSS, Aarhus University. She holds an MSc in Marketing from Aarhus University.
Her research interests lie at the intersection of innovation, consumer behaviour, and responsible marketing. She is particularly interested in how firms engage with societal issues, how marketing can support the inclusion and representation of underrepresented groups, and how consumers respond to firms’ socially oriented actions.
Her PhD research examines responsible innovativeness from the consumer perspective. She will investigate how consumers perceive firms’ responsible innovation, what shapes these perceptions, and how perceived responsible innovativeness relates to consumer responses and firm performance. Her research will draw on the Danish Innovation Index and complementary consumer research to better understand the role of responsibility in how consumers evaluate innovative firms.
Yushu Li, PhD Student, Aarhus University
Yushu Li
Yushu Li is a PhD student at the Department of Management, Aarhus BSS, Aarhus University. She holds a Master’s degree in International Social and Public Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and a Master’s degree in Global Social Policy from Fudan University.
Her research interests lie at the intersection of artificial intelligence, digital innovation, consumer behaviour, and firm innovativeness. She is particularly interested in how emerging technologies are translated into customer-facing innovation and how consumers perceive, interpret, and respond to such innovations.
Her PhD research examines digital and commercial innovativeness from the consumer perspective. She will investigate how consumers perceive firms’ digital and commercial innovation, what drives these perceptions, and how AI-enabled innovation can influence perceptions of firm innovativeness. In particular, her research will examine the roles of perceived customer value, trust, and the framing of AI in shaping these perceptions.
The two PhD students will be supervised by Darius-Aurel Frank together with Associate Professors Lina Fogt Jacobsen and Helle Alsted Søndergaard, who co-founded the Danish Innovation Index in 2021. Lina and Helle will contribute their expertise across the respective research domains and help connect the individual PhD projects to the broader research agenda of the Danish Innovation Index.
An important part of both PhD projects will also be their international research environment. Blanka and Yushu will each spend an extended research stay of three to six months at a partner university within the Innovation Index Coalition. These stays will provide opportunities to work closely with researchers across the Coalition, develop joint research, and further strengthen the connections between its partner institutions.
With Blanka and Yushu joining the team, the Danish Innovation Index enters a new phase of its development. Their projects will expand the Index into two important areas of firm innovativeness and strengthen the connection between the Danish Innovation Index, Aarhus University, and the wider Innovation Index Coalition.
We look forward to following their research and to the new insights their work will bring to the understanding of firm innovativeness from the consumer perspective.
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The Danish Innovation Index (DII), developed by the Department of Management, Aarhus University, is the first consumer-based ranking of the most innovative companies in Denmark. Unlike expert or leader assessments, the DII emphasizes that only companies—not countries—can be innovative, and customers—not managers—are the final judges of innovation.
Each year, the DII evaluates more than 80 companies across 20 industries, measuring innovativeness through customers’ perceptions of newness and impact. This bottom-up approach provides a unique perspective on how innovation drives competitiveness, value creation, and long-term success in the Danish market.
Around March 1 every year, DII announces the winners in each of the following 20 industries, celebrating the firms that stand out as leaders in customer-perceived innovation.
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Aarhus BSS is one of the five faculties at Aarhus University and one of the largest schools of business and social sciences in Europe.
The acronym BSS is short for Business and Social Sciences.The school is home to six academic departments, all internationally recognised for their quality of educational and research activities, as well as a large number of internationally recognised research centres. Gathering all business and social science disciplines under the same strategic framework has created a dynamic and visionary organisation, which is flexible and changes in line with the society's needs for qualified graduates with the right skillsets.
Aarhus BSS holds the distinguished AACSB, AMBA and EQUIS accreditations, and is thereby a triple crown business school.
The research-based degree programmes offered by the school include highly recognised programmes within disciplines such as economics, finance, accounting, logistics, human resource management,
organisation, marketing, management information systems, innovation, entrepreneurship, business communication, law, psychology, public administration and political science. -
The Carlsberg Foundation is one of the world's oldest industrial foundations - founded in 1876 by brewer J.C. Jacobsen.
Since then, the Carlsberg Foundation's primary purpose has been to ensure the long-term, committed ownership of Carlsberg A/S and to distribute funds for philanthropic purposes, including especially for Danish basic research.
In 2025, the Carlsberg Foundation granted funding totalling DKK 1.026 million. The majority of grants are awarded in free competition following open calls.