Shared Vision Planning (SVP) is a collaborative approach to water (resource) management that combines three practices: (1) traditional water resources planning; (2) structured participation of stakeholders; (3) (collaborative) computer modeling and simulation. The authors argue that there are ample opportunities for learning and innovation in SVP when we look at it as a form of Policy Analysis (PA) in a multi-actor context. SVP faces three classic PA dilemmas: (1) the role of experts and scientific knowledge in policymaking; (2) The design and management of participatory and interactive planning processes; and (3) the (ab)use of computer models and simulations in (multi actor) policymaking. In dealing with these dilemmas, SVP can benefit from looking at the richness of PA methodology, such as for stakeholder analysis and process management. And it can innovate by incorporating some of the rapid developments now taking place in the field of (serious) gaming and simulation (S&G) for policy analysis. In return, the principles, methods, and case studies of SVP can significantly enhance how we perform PA for multi-actor water (resource) management.
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Co-creation and social innovation are currently linked concepts in both policy and academic research. Almost always, the attitude towards these concepts is intrinsically positive, although evidence of their added value is lacking. In my research, I looked at the development of social innovation and co-creation in theory and practice. By analysing the use of these notions in EU policies, EU grants and awarded EU projects, I was able to show that both concepts are not only unclear, but are also mutually strengthen and add value to each other. For example, co-creation is seen as an integral part of social innovation and therefore stakeholder involvement is sufficient to qualify as good social innovation, without further evidence. A systematic literature review supports these findings.Because of the ambiguity of both concepts and the fact that they reinforce each other, there is hardly any attention to the quality of co-creation as such within social innovation. We witness this not only in social innovation projects, but also, for example, in so-called living labs. In order to monitor and improve the quality of co-creation within social innovation, an evaluation framework was developed based on a systematic literature review. This framework can be used by both policy makers and participants in social innovation projects.
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Social innovation and co-creation have been discussed in academic literature for the last twenty years. However, the interrelatedness and application of these concepts in European Union policy deserves more attention. In our study, we focus on this relationship and application, by analysing the value of co-creation for social innovation. By analysing a large EU dataset, we showed that social innovation and co-creation were used more and more widely and that their use took off after 2010 and 2015 respectively. By applying a contextual analysis, we also revealed that both concepts became connected in EU policy on research and innovation. Our analysis also shows that co-creation became an indicator for successful social innovation in the Horizon Europe Framework programme. These results show the importance of co-creation in policies, but because the concept has not been defined properly, this carries the risk of simplifying co-creation into a box-ticking exercise.
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In this policy brief we recommend that in order to face numerous societal challenges such as migration and climate change, regional governments should create a culture of innovation by opening up themselves and stimulate active citizenship by supporting so called Public Sector Innovation (PSI) labs. These labs bring together different types of stakeholders that will explore new solutions for societalchallenges and come up with new policies to tackle them. This method has been developed and tested in a large EU funded research project.
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The authors analyze the policy discourse on the utility of games for society at the level of the European Union, and for five EU countries, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and Norway. The ongoing study is part of a Research Roadmap developed within the GALA Network of Excellence on Serious Games (2010-2014, EU FP7). The authors identify four policy discourses on the utility of serious games that they label as Technology Enhanced Learning; Creative Innovation; Social Inclusion and Empowerment and Complex Systems. The polcies applicable to SGs in the five European countries are briely described and compared. It was seen that some countries have explicit policies for SGs (the Netherlands, Germany); whereas most of the countries only have implicit policies not directly addressing SGs but which can be used to support SGs development and use.
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Part I consists of an inventory of the current and upcoming policy, where we zoom in from European to national and from regional to local level. Additionally, we look at a number of quantitative accomplishments of the Hanze University of Applied Sciences. This preparatory research is performed as part of the European collaborative project Interreg Europe TraCS3.
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This report presents research on success factors of learning communities with a case study of the Innovation Lab Hanze International Business Office (further – Innovation Lab HIBO) at Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen, the Netherlands. The research project is a part of the broader research programme on innovation of education and the success factors of learning communities carried on by a number of researchers at Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen (further – Hanze University AS).In answering the main research question on success factors of learning communities and, specifically, the Innovation Lab HIBO, two sub-questions were formulated: the first deals with school level expectations about the Innovation Lab HIBO, whereas the second explores what are the institutional expectations and guidelines regarding living labs at Hanze University AS. The research focus is on formalised expectations about the goals and outcomes of living labs, as attaining the established goals and outcomes would testimony a successful activity of a living lab. The factors that facilitate or determine whether the goalsand outcomes of living labs are achieved are therefore the success factors.The analysis of both school level expectations about the Innovation Lab HIBO and the institutional expectations and guidelines regarding living labs reveals a number of success factors, conditions, and preconditions. As these do not coincide, it is argued that finding the right balance between local, school level, expectations and the institutional goals is crucial for the successful performance of living labs. Another important factor for successful performance of the living lab and, specifically the Innovation Lab HIBO, is development of a learning community. This process would require strengthening of an open organisationalculture and facilitation of exchange of ideas and learning process.The research project was carried on in the period from February 1, 2020, till August 30, 2020. From September 2020 the follow up research is planned into operationalization of success factors, definition of performance criteria, performance evaluation, development of suggestions for improvement of performance, and development of a blueprint for the establishment of innovation labs.
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The last decade we saw an increasing academic, policy, and professional interest in the use of co-creation to tackle societal challenges. Most research focused on qualitative analysis of case studies. This led to an understanding that co-creation is essential for social innovation. We started this paper by analyzing co-creation strategies ex ante to understand how EU-funded consortia intend to tackle societal challenges. By quantitatively analyzing 300 EU projects and qualitatively analyzing the Horizon2020 “co-creation for growth and inclusion” call, our research revealed four different types of consortia. We characterized these types by the coordinators and dubbed them, respectively, as research led, government led, enterprise led, and other led. These consortia were quite different in terms of diversity and preferred partners. We also distinguished three distinct co-creation strategies that are focused on inclusion of stakeholders, the outcome, or tool development. We discovered that these strategies are not linked to types of consortia or projects, but only to the call text. We therefore conclude that the policy design of Horizon2020 led to a program that aims to stimulate innovation, but has become too rigid to be able to do so.
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Between 2009 and 2013 a project has been executed in the Utrecht region to strengthen the workplace innovation capacity of SMEs (My Company 2.0). The participating companies were asked to fill in a questionnaire on the workplace innovation capacity of the company at two moments: at the beginning (T0) and at the end of the project (T1). The workplace innovation capacity was measured with questions about the organization (responds on changing demands in the environment), labor (employee flexibility), strategy (innovation with other companies) and market (improvement or renewal of products/services). We divided the companies (n=103) into two groups, namely companies that implemented an intervention an companies that did not. We found that the companies that received an intervention during the project had a significantly higher score with regard to the workplace innovation capacity at T1 compared to T0. The companies in which no intervention took place had a small (not significant) decrease in workplace innovation capacity between the baseline- (T0) and the post- test (T1). We also compared the data with data from a national reference population. It appeared that the companies in our study scored higher in workplace innovation capacity at both measurements (T0 and T1) than the reference population
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Energy policies are vital tools used by countries to regulate economic and social development as well as guarantee national security. To address the problems of fragmented policy objectives, conflicting tools, and overlapping initiatives, the internal logic and evolutionary trends of energy policies must be explored using the policy content. This study uses 38,277 energy policies as a database and summarizes the four energy policy objectives: clean, low-carbon, safe, and efficient. Using the TextCNN model to classify and deconstruct policies, the LDA + Word2vec theme conceptualization and similarity calculations were compared with the EISMD evolution framework to determine the energy policy theme evolution path. Results indicate that the density of energy policies has increased. Policies have become more comprehensive, barriers between objectives have gradually been broken, and low-carbon objectives have been strengthened. The evolution types are more diversified, evolution paths are more complicated, and the evolution types are often related to technology, industry, and market maturity. Traditional energy themes evolve through inheritance and merger; emerging technology and industry themes evolve through innovation, inheritance, and splitting. Moreover, this study provides a replicable analytical framework for the study of policy evolution in other sectors and evidence for optimizing energy policy design
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