ekip Tools and methods

Policy Corners

ekip Policy Corner has been developed to engage CCI stakeholders and actors in open innovation-driven process with their different roles. Policy Corners are short workshops that directly and actively engage. They are spaces for the exchange of knowledge, the exploration and identification of challenges and opportunities for CCIs in specific policy areas for innovation.

Three possible aims for Policy Corners, upon which it distinguished three possible typologies:

• The EXPLORATIVE POLICY CORNER aims to engage the ekip Community in the identification phase of the ekip engine, resulting in a list of policy areas for innovation. This kind of Policy Corner carries out a “horizontal”, broad, and open exploration of different policy areas for innovation. These then pass through the prioritisation phase of the engine to define the next policy areas for innovation to be investigated by the ekip partners.
• The GENERATIVE POLICY CORNER aims to engage the ekip Advisory Board Specialists in the investigation phase of the ekip engine, resulting in a list of the challenges of a specific policy area for innovation (including frictions, opportunities, and threats). This kind of Policy Corner carries out a “vertical”, deep and zoomed-in investigation of a prioritised policy area for innovation. The list of challenges is then used to develop the scoping paper, which serves as the foundation for organising the Policy Lab, which is the format where policy recommendations are developed inside the ekip engine.
• A HYBRID of the two, aiming to engage the ekip Community in the investigation and formulation phases of the ekip engine, produce feedback on preliminary results, and integrate case studies, missing points of view, challenges, and opportunities. The need to develop this hybrid format arose from the necessity to create a more agile format that could involve a part of the ekip Community specialized in specific topics within tight timeframes and/or through digital workshops.

ekip Policy Corners base their methodology on the Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI) Facets Model (from now on OPSI model) of the OECD (OPSI, 2021), because the ekip project uses it to assess policies in local ecosystems.

OPSI model

Innovation portfolio management guides different types of innovation inside organisations and across greater ecosystems. It involves a dynamic process of sense- and decision-making, which includes periodically assessing ongoing innovation programmes to ensure fair resource distribution and alignment with overarching goals, supporting both exploitative and explorative efforts.

Initially rooted in the private sector for financial gain and short-term projects, this approach has been emerging in the public sector, where it must address public objectives, involve external stakeholders, and have long-term impacts, aiming to prevent fragmentation, reduce reliance on isolated solutions, tackle risk aversion, and foster knowledge development. It encourages collaboration across projects, creating networks and strategies that connect activities and avoid system entrapment.

Based on years of experience with public sector organisations throughout the world, OPSI created a framework for laying out the strategic intent and purpose of innovation, allowing governments to better understand and manage multifaceted innovation. OPSI created the Innovation Facets framework, which has four facets based on four identified types of innovation:

• Enhancement-focused innovation, which typically seeks to achieve greater efficiency, effectiveness and value, by upgrading what is already in place, building on existing (eco-)systemic infrastructures.
• Mission-oriented innovation, which aligns innovation efforts with ambitious societal goals, mobilising ecosystems to address major challenges through coordinated actions across sectors.
• Adaptive innovation, which builds resilience by supporting decentralised, bottom-up decision-making, allowing organisations to adjust to uncertainty and changing environments through adaptive capacity and governance.
• Anticipatory innovation, which explores emerging issues and shapes new, value-shifting innovations through foresight, acting today to address both present and future challenges.

To know more about the model and how the facets were built, consider visiting the following link

ekip Policy Corners base their methodology on the Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI) Facets Model (from now on OPSI model) of the OECD. The OPSI model describes the intent of different innovation activities in the public sector. Consequently, organisations should aim to support all four facets in some way as part of an innovation portfolio approach. The model is widely valued and recognised by public organisations and supports public organisations in mapping their innovation portfolios and ensuring comprehensive coverage of all innovation facets. In other words, the model centres on how the public sector can innovate. Nevertheless, ekip focuses on CCIs and their ability to innovate, not necessarily on the public sector. For all these reasons, ekip intends to adapt the OPSI model to be part of the Policy Corner methodology, aligning it to its goals, and to the KEM framework—which is the model that ekip structured to identify and map policy areas for innovation (refer to D4.1). Both frameworks, indeed, work on the concept of transformation and how it can be activated: on the one hand, the OPSI model focuses on how public sector organisations could innovate to stimulate different kinds of change; on the other, the KEM framework shows what CCIs can do and know to activate change and sustain innovative transitions. In other words, the two models converge on the idea that the public sector should aim to explore a variety of purposes fostering innovation across different fields and sectors, with CCIs serving as one of the many lenses through which various types of innovation can be enabled, particularly through KEMs.

Methodology for Policy Corners

Methodology for Open Innovation Factories

1. Rationale and Purpose

Purpose in this Project

Open Innovation Factories are ekip’s means for putting policy into practice for the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs) through collaboration between creatives, technologists, and policymakers. These events are intended to inspire and empower participants to apply open innovation principles in their day-to-day work, enhancing their capacity to maximise the benefits of innovation policies aimed at the CCIs.

Impact and Transformation

Through these workshops, participants take their first steps towards transforming speculative ideas about the future of open innovation for the creative industries into tangible actions: by exploring futures-focused methods like scenario-building, FutureCasting1, future stories canvases, and backcasting2, participants learn novel methods for opening the imaginative space to explore creative, as yet unknown futures. This approach provides a structured yet flexible framework that encourage innovation beyond conventional boundaries.

By creating an environment where feedback loops are inherent, the methodology supports iterative learning and adaptation, ensuring that participants can continuously refine their approaches and strategies, steering towards futures that participants want to build and away from undesireable future scenarios. This transformative potential is critical in ensuring that the outcomes of the Open Innovation Factories are not only insightful but also practically applicable, offering long-term benefits for participants and their respective sectors.

How This Fits into Other Parts of the Ekip Structure

Within the broader ekip framework, Open Innovation Factories are pivotal in reinforcing the application of open innovation principles across the CCIs at the individual practitioner and SME level. While other parts of ekip are designed to develop public policies that will benefit the CCIs at a broad sectoral and society level (with participation often at the level of representative bodies or larger groups or organisations from the CCIs), the Open Innovation Factories are practitioner-facing, designed to put the skills and competencies of open innovation into practice across the grassroots creative industries.

2. Method

Format

A typical Open Innovation Factory consists of one or more expert panel discussions followed by an interactive workshop, blending key insights from leading experts across policy, research and industry with practical experience putting these insights into practice. This dual approach provides a comprehensive learning experience, with participants able to gain knowledge from industry leaders and apply these insights through collaborative exercises. The format was designed to foster deep engagement, creativity, and innovation and these are core values that should be retained to deliver a successful Open Innovation Factory. The ekip knowledge bank contains a facilitator’s guide and assorted resources for each of the workshops we have run to date3, and these can be utilised as a blueprint for future events, or adapted and developed to new policy areas and/or audiences.

Speakers and Inclusivity

Speakers have been and should be selected for their expertise and diversity, ensuring a wide range of perspectives and insights for each of ekip’s priority innovation areas. In choosing speakers, inclusivity is a key consideration, with significant effort often required to ensure a diverse representation of different geographic, cultural, and domain contexts, as well as ensuring (demographic) diversity of the speakers themselves (e.g. across gender, race and ethnicity, language, etc.) Public discourse and events around innovation (particularly in the tech and Creative Tech space) can often be dominated by less diverse groups of speakers, particularly with regard to gender, so care must always be taken to ensure speakers are both authentic experts in the given area and are representative of society as a whole wherever possible. Greater inclusivity not only enriches the discussions but also aligns with ekip’s commitment to fostering an equitable and representative industry landscape, and with policy makers (at EU level and in most nation states and regions across Europe) commitments to equality, diversity and inclusion.

Process and Platforms/Locations

Workshops have been held in hybrid formats, combining online and in-person elements and utilizing platforms like Miro4 for virtual engagement, with take-away learning assets distributed after sessions via email (usually alongside links to complete feedback forms). This hybrid approach maximises accessibility and inclusivity, allowing participants to engage fully regardless of location or ability (physically or financially) to travel to the event. The process is structured yet flexible, accommodating different participation preferences (including more neurodivergent-friendly ways to engage), and encouraging creativity and exploration.

To facilitate hybrid Open Innovation Factories we recommend keeping online and inperson activities as separate but parallel activities, with separate facilitators for each. This enables best practices for in-person activities, and for online activities5 - which can be quite different in terms of facilitation activities and nurturing active contribution - to be followed at the same time. Feedback and sharing of reflections across both virtual and in-person spaces can then be facilited as a combined hybrid activity (back in the Teams, Zoom or other web conferencing space used for presentations etc.).

Interactivity and Takeaways

Interactivity is a core feature of each Open Innovation Factory, with structured activities designed to build engagement and open discussion during each workshop as well as ensuring participants have access to a core knowledge base to take away with them and apply in their day-to-day practice. Participants, including expert panellists, are encouraged to collaborate and contribute during the practical workshop portions of each session, leading to rich exchanges of ideas and strategies. For each event, to ensure participants are considering how they would apply knowledge beyond the workshop room/online session, we recommend concluding with a segment covering key actions participants will commit to as a result of the session, and key questions they will be taking forward with them into their future work. This reflective practice empowers participants to set clear intentions to implement their learnings and drive future-based change within their contexts beyond the workshop iteself.

3. Further Resources

You can find the full set of Open Innovation Factory Resources on the ekip knowledge bank: knowledge-bank.ekipengine.eu/?kb_taxonomies=level--1~open--innovation--factories

Read about the wider ekip engine, and complementary engagement formats including Policy Corners, Policy Labs and City Prototyping here: https://ekipengine.eu/tools-methods/

A full methodological write-up of this approach, including more detailed considerations about event formats, delivery, timing, staffing, and recruitment of participants and speakers, is available in an annexe to ekip’s Deliverable 16.2: Testimonies from the Open Innovation Factories - participant experience and lessons learned on the effectiveness of skill building.

Feedback on the Open Innovation Factory approach

If you have any feedback on the Open Innovation Factory approach we would love to hear from you. Contact the team at University of Edinburgh via: designinformatics@ed.ac.uk

Table 1: Example running order (based on our Inclusivity in Games Open Innovation Factory)

Time	Total time	Activity	Lead	Support
3 mins	3	Host intro	Host	2x supporting members of team
7 mins	10	Introduction to event & to ekip	Project representatives	2x supporting members of team
45 mins	55	Panel hosted by Host or Facilitator + 3-4 participants	Host/Facilitator	2x supporting members of team
5 mins	60	Comfort break	N/A	A member of support team to be available through text chat (off camera unless specifically needed)
10	1h 10	Intro to any takeaway resources ahead of workshop	Team member	2x supporting members of team
40	1h 50	Workshop – see detailed facilitator	Workshop lead (team member)	2x supporting members of team
5	1h 55	Wrap, takeaways, next steps	Team lead	2x supporting members of team
5	2h	General goodbyes (team to remain available for any final questions or follow up).	Host	2x supporting members of team