ekip Tools and methods

Method of Mapping and Prioritising Innovation Areas

Our methodology to assess the prioritized innovation areas begins with a thorough selection phase, where potential innovation areas are categorized and ranked based on their relevance to open innovation ecosystems and supported by at least 10 data sources.

Prioritized innovation areas include key topics such as cross-sectoral cooperation, sustainability, digital transformation, and social capital. These areas are then thematically clustered, resulting in six main clusters and a methodological meta-cluster for better understanding the complexity of CCIs: cooperation; ecosystem development; education and skills development; sustainable competitiveness; digital transition and green transition; inclusiveness and society resilience.

An important aspect of the process is the ekip validation mapping tool, which visually represents these innovation areas along two axes:

This tool helps ensure a balance between technology, humanity, and policy, offering a comprehensive view of the driving forces shaping CCIs. By highlighting emerging trends, the mapping helps prioritize areas for future exploration, addressing challenges within the CCI sectors.

This methodology not only supports innovation but also empowers creative industries to meet societal and technological shifts head-on.

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:

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:

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

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