Open Innovation: A Game-Changer

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At ekip, Open Innovation is more than a principle—it is a strategic principal positioning cultural and creative industries at the forefront of Europe’s innovation cycle. By engaging from the earliest stages, CCIs both shape and benefit from new developments, advancing the continent’s ambitions for greater competitiveness, sustainability, and global influence.

The application of Open Innovation has benefits not only for the CCIs, but for many other areas in need of development. But it must be used with a twist. The policy recommendations from ekip show the way for how to make this change happen.

Establishing Open Innovation 3.0

Open Innovation, popularized by Henry Chesbrough in 2003, describes how organizations accelerate development by combining internal ideas with external collaboration from actors like start‑ups, universities and customers. Ten years later, Martin Curley and Bror Salminen expanded the concept with Open Innovation 2.0, emphasizing a mindset of adaptability and teamwork to drive impactful innovation.

Marcin Poprawski at Humak University of Applied Sciences stresses that Open Innovation does not simply involve giving away knowledge collected through the innovation process to anyone, anywhere and at any time.

“Instead, Open Innovation, as a strategic and coordinated process, works under an agreement between the involved partners to explore innovative solutions purposefully with the innovation initiators. This means that Open Innovation is anchored in mutual trust, respect, and transparency regarding stakeholders’ intentions.”

ekip now promotes Open Innovation 3.0, adding two key elements: (1) stronger CCI involvement across all business sectors and (2) foresight‑driven policy recommendations that support innovation policies enabling this approach.

The missing piece
Given the challenges facing Europe and the ambitions stated in the European Strategy, there is an urgent need to find new ways of working together. ekip recently launched the “Creatives Are the Missing Piece” campaign aiming to raise awareness of the often-overlooked role that cultural and creative actors can play in enabling innovation, particularly at its earliest stages, where ambiguity, experimentation, and meaning-making are most critical.

“CCI professionals, despite the highly competitive nature of their field, are generally very aware of the long-term benefits of sharing. The generosity and openness of artists, authors and craft professionals pay off in the field of creative practices, and it is this generosity and legacy that guarantees the continuity and relevance of the arts and crafts and their ongoing, uninterrupted presence in human history,” says Marcin Poprawski.

In sum, the CCIs bring with them a broad set of knowledge and competence oriented towards both products and processes. For example, many CCIs have long experience from acting as a swarm and working together with other organizations, co-creating new concepts or productions. They are also crucial in the process of making new products attractive to users, and in imagining new futures.

“If we want innovation in Europe to be impactful and inclusive, we need to recognize the role creatives already play in shaping how new ideas develop, take root and spread.”

CCI not a side business

The engagement of CCIs in Open Innovation not only benefits other sectors but also creates significant opportunities for the CCIs themselves. By investing in collaboration with researchers and other partners, they can gain new knowledge that strengthens their work and find new partners, clients and markets. Open Innovation 3.0 also links cultural policy with innovation policy, giving CCIs access to new funding opportunities and contexts.

FP10, designed for 2028–2034, will most likely integrate the CCIs into the EU’s research and innovation agenda. According to Charlotte Lorentz Hjorth, Lund University and coordinator for ekip, not having a special program or pillar for the CCIs is beneficial since it enables the CCIs as part of innovation work in general empowered by Open Innovation 3.0.

“However, for this to succeed, CCIs must remain recognized and resilient sectors within the wider R&I strategy, while policies and innovation ecosystems continue to evolve,” says Charlotte Lorentz Hjorth.

How ekip contributes to Open Innovation

ekip’s numerous deliverables are deeply immersed in the Open Innovation paradigm.

“The work itself, the ekip Engine, is designed as an Open Innovation 3.0 process involving people and organizations from various sectors and disciplines. The cross-innovation policy topics that are processed through the ekip Engine, such as AI and Green Transition, focus on European challenges and opportunities of importance not only to the CCIs but also other areas,” says Charlotte Lorentz Hjorth.

The resulting methods, concepts, tools and artefacts are shared to enhance policy development processes at different levels, from cities to the EU Commission.

The aim is to make Open Innovation 3.0 into norm and standard practice in innovation ecosystems, and to find ways to support this progress through policy development focusing on innovation ecosystem building blocks such as infrastructures and networks, investment and funding, regulations and governance, how to work with skills and competence development, and techniques and technologies. In addition, sustainable competitiveness must be considered as well as the social dimension.

”To accomplish that, Open Innovation 3.0 needs to evolve into be established as an innovation culture by the innovation ecosystem actors including the CCIs. And who but the CCIs are best equipped to develop a culture,” says Charlotte Lorentz Hjorth.

Facts: Open Innovation is sometimes confused with the concept of Open Source. They both leverage collaboration to enhance development but differ in scope and intent. Open Source refers specifically to the free sharing, modification, and community development of software code. Open Innovation is a broader business strategy involving the strategic, purposeful inflow and outflow of knowledge—ideas, intellectual property, or R&D—to accelerate internal innovation or expand markets.