Policy, policy recommendation, policy area, and policy development journey – what’s the difference?

ekip is an Innovation Policy Platform for the Cultural and Creative Industries, so in our communication we tend to include “policy” a lot, often in combination with other words. This sometimes leads to confusion, since the concept is rather complex and sometimes used in different ways. Here we try to define some of the more common concepts: policy, policy recommendation, policy area, and policy journey.

POLICY – A MULTI-FACETED CONCEPT

The Cambridge Dictionary defines “policy” as

“a set of ideas or a plan of what to do in particular situations that has been agreed to officially by a group of people, a business organization, a government, or a political party.”

In the context of ekip, a policy can focus on issues such as what kinds of organizations are allowed to apply for funding (for example, both SMEs and NGOs) or on selection criteria for invitation to participate in programs or activities (for example, >10 employees). They can also regulate tasks allocated to cultural institutions, for example, if museums are encouraged to support innovation or not. A policy can also define how money is distributed for different kinds of activities and if support is made available. In sum, a policy can focus on many things, but the key is that it is something that (a) a group of people decides upon (b) within some kind of organization, for example, a municipality. There are also different policy domains, such as cultural policies and innovation policies where ekip aims at bridging the two.

POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS – ONE OF MANY OUTPUTS FROM EKIP

Professionals involved in policymaking get input from many places that they use as input to the decision-making process. They can be visual and formal decision-makers or hidden and informal influencers. Rooted in open innovation, ekip brings together broad stakeholder groups to co-create and deliver evidence-based policy recommendations. They focus on the building-blocks of open innovation such as infrastructures, investment and funding, research and innovation, regulation and governance, skills, sustainable competitiveness, and the social dimension. We publish them on the web and make them available through our community. Sometimes we also include them in calls for evidence from the EU Commission, or in presentations when invited to meetings with ministries, boards, and so on. Common to all the recommendations is that they serve as input to the decision-making process and can be used as a basis for a policy decision in a particular organization.

POLICY AREA – A LENS TO STAY FOCUSED

Policy recommendations regarding open innovation building blocks can easily become too general. That is why we use several concrete lenses to explore important trends and aspects related to the opportunities and challenges the EU faces. These lenses, or policy areas as we call them, are chosen through a detailed process to find the most urgent and timely topics to focus on, but also to provide a good mix of different types of areas to process. Areas related to green and digital transitions, access to finance, internationalization, and business development are prioritized. So far, some areas have addressed CCIs broadly, such as “AI and the CCIs,” whereas others have been narrower in character, such as “Fashion Transition: Eco-Design for Circularity.”

POLICY DEVELOPMENT JOURNEY – MANY STEPS TO REACH DECISIONS

Complex decisions take time to process since many different aspects need to be considered. The agenda needs to be set, the problem needs to be framed, solutions need to be found and discussed, and when a final decision has been made, implementation and evaluation need to be considered. This means that policy professionals embark on a policy development journey that might take several months or even years. During this process, different kinds of material are relevant for different purposes. This is why ekip produces several kinds of output, such as policy scoping documents, posters, presentations, and recommendations. In addition, we also provide tools and methods that support collaborative processes, such as policy corners and policy labs.

MAKING THE JOURNEY TOGETHER

The ekip Community is a digital space where creatives, experts, and policymakers come together to engage in dialogue, collaboration, and knowledge exchange. This community offers a platform for creatives to connect with like-minded individuals, share their ideas and insights, and contribute to shaping policy decisions at different levels. The collaborative aspect is important, since it makes it possible to spot sometimes very subtle requirements that hinder open innovation and to come up with solutions that enhance the opportunities for CCIs to address major challenges like the green and digital transformation, and social inclusion.

Join ekip and contribute to policy recommendations that shape development journeys and enable policies supporting open innovation!