As the first order of business in the RIGHT project, each region produced and published its own regional report, using an underlying format developed in work package 3 in this project (Manickam & van Lieshout, 2018). The format and the regional work consisted of three parts. Part 1 is the Regional Innovation Ecosystems (RIE) mapping to provide a qualitative understanding of the region’s innovation ecosystem with regards to its Smart Specialisation Strategies (S3). This part is divided into a socio-economic and R&D profile mapping and a SWOT analysis. The RIE is an adaptation of a methodology and tool used by the eDIGIREGION Project. This part is to be filled in by desk research and consulting regional experts (through interviews and/or focus groups). This part is used for mapping the own regional ecosystems, information for the partners to get to know the other regions and to be able to identify relevant similarities and differences across the regions, which in turn, will be reported in part 1 of this trans-regional report. Regions themselves chose their own sector focus. One could focus on either energy of the blue sector, or both. Part 2 focuses on the innovation capacity and needs of SMEs from the chosen sector(s). The questions are adapted from a systemic study on cluster developments, in which an analysis model was developed (Manickam, 2018). It is based on (on average) six face-to-face interviews with SMEs from the sector. The outputs of these interviews were summarised into one template, in English, by each partner region to allow for joint analysis and comparison that is in turn reported in part 2 of this report Part 3 introduced the Job Forecasting and Skills Gaps mapping using the JOES templates as developed by van Lieshout et al. (2017). To gain an appreciation of the extent and nature of skills gap, each region was asked to analyse current and potential future labour demand, workforce, and discrepancies between the two, in up to 2 businesses. For obvious reasons (confidentiality and privacy), the JOEs will not be published separately, nor will their information be used in the report in a way that would be traceable to specific businesses. We will use exemplary information from them for illustrative purposes in Parts 1 and 2 of this report where relevant.
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This report consists of two parts and describes the highlights of the investigations carried out in the Province of Groningen as part of the Right Project to understand the Regional Innovation Ecosystem in the region. The first part is focusses on the socio-economic and R&D profile (Part 1A) and a SWOT analysis on salient aspects related to Regional Innovation Ecosystems (Part 1B). The second part (Part 2) focuses on the SME innovation capacity and needs, and presents the highlights of 6 interviews with SMEs in the region. The RIGHT project, an Interreg North Sea Program, will contribute to territorial growth in the North Sea Region by connecting smart specialisation strategies to human capital and the skills of the workforce by defining existing and potential regional growth sectors and sub-sectors.
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Implementing circular urban supply chains is a major economic transformation that can only work if significant coordination problems between the actors involved are solved. This requires, on the one hand, the implementation of efficient urban collection technologies, where process industries collaborate hand-in-hand with manufacturers and urban waste treatment specialists and are supported by digital solutions. On the other hand, it also requires implementing regional ecosystems connected by innovative CO2-neutral circular city logistics systems smoothly and sustainably managing the regional flow of resources and data, often at large-scale and with interfaces between industrial processes and private and public actors. Develop blueprint for circular urban region This research project aims to develop a blueprint for circular urban regions, including the demonstration of a territorial cross-sectorial, large-scale and sustainable systemic solution for the circularity of high-performance plastics from diverse applications of rigid polyurethane (PU) foams used as insulation material in refrigerators and construction elements. The research project develops a blueprint for regional participative governance using an approach involving multiple actors from the public-, private-, academic-, and financial sectors and civil society (by working in living labs).The focus of the presentation (and paper) is on the control tower elements of the circular urban supply chain and the elements to make the collaboration work.In terms of urban logistics and collection services is to make these materials accessible for downstream sorting and recycling processes for the first time in a sustainable and economically viable way. The project will develop a new way of processing defined waste streams like appliances (refrigerators), to separate chemically recyclable PU from a mixed plastics waste stream.
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Business innovation is a multidisciplinary area of expertise that bridges the gap between traditional areas of study such as business administration, organizational studies, marketing, design, engineering and entrepreneurship. Business innovation focuses on creating, accelerating and managing new and sustainable business models through innovation (Crossan and Apaydin, 2010; Keeley, Walters, Pikkel, and Quinn, 2013).
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The world is rapidly transforming. Economic, ecological and technological developments transcend existing boundaries and challenge the way we innovate. The challenge we face is to reinvent innovation as well, changing the way organisations and industries innovate and cooperate. Only with a new approach we can design a better future: an approach where stakeholders from government, organisations, companies and users participate in new ways of collaboration; an approach where solutions are realised that makes our society future-proof. Participatory innovation means that the innovation team changes: expanding beyond the boundaries of the own organisation. For organisations and companies, this is a huge step. Every partner must be willing to think and act beyond their own borders and participate in a joint effort. Participative innovation is a new way of working, where new challenges are encountered. In the field of urban lighting, this transformation is strongly felt. This paper will further explore the challenge and describe a rich case study where participative innovation is used to rethink, redesign and realise the solutions to transform urban lighting from functional lighting to improving social quality.
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This paper describes prototypes for transition pathways towards inclusive, sustainable development for seven regions in five European Countries. The approach for developing transition pathways was based on three theoretical building blocks. First, the ABCD-Roadmap that outlines the various steps to be developed in the design process of the transition pathway, secondly, the Socio-Ecological-System framework was used to describe the current situation and analyze the interactions within the system and lastly, the X-curve model provided guidance in categorizing activities and policies that should be adapted, developed new or stopped. The international team showed how transition pathways for sustainable development can be developed in different contexts and scale levels, all over Europe. The resulting advice can be helpful to professionals active in regional development, on municipal, provincial, national, or European level.
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This paper analyses co-creation in urban living labs through a multi-level network perspective on system innovation. We draw on the case House of Skills, a large, multi-stakeholder living lab aimed at developing a ‘skills-based’ approach towards labour market innovation within the Amsterdam Metropolitan Region. Ouranalysis helps understand stakeholder dynamics towards system innovation, drawing on an innovative living lab example and taking into consideration the multi-layered structures that comprise the collaboration. Our conceptual framework provides an important theoretical contribution to innovation studies and offers a practical repertoire that can help practitioners improve co-creation of shared value in living labs, towards orchestrating flexible structures that strengthen the impact of their initiatives.
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This contribution will describe how the Hanzehogeschool in Groningen, the Netherlands has implemented its entrepreneurship education throughoutthe entire institution resulting in entrepreneurial awareness among manystudents and great impact in the regional innovation ecosystem
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Reflections: Systemic (Co) Design is still relatively unknow to practitioners As well as to academics in the economic domain Dialogue requires active involvement and experiencing diverse perspectives through a variety of methods/tools Artifacts contribute to the continuity of the dialogues Gathering data (and interpreting data) remains complex The insights generated by the workshops connect practice and research guiding both learning and research Designers play an essential role in reflexivity and thus promote learning
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The ever increasing technological developments and greater demands from our society for qualitative better, safer, sustainable products, processes and systems are pushing the boundaries of what is possible from an engineer’s perspective. Besides the (local) grand challenges in energy, sustainability, health and mobility the world is getting smaller due to advances in communication and digitalization. The exponential increase of complexity and data driven systems (big data) which are integrated and connected to different networks calls for rethinking and inventing new business models [1]. To stay competitive in the world OEM’s and SME’s have to develop breakthrough technological, innovative and advanced systems and processes. These changes have a major impact on engineering education. The industry needs engineers with different competences and skills to fulfil the challenges and demands mentioned earlier. Universities should follow up on these changes and can only deliver and prepare the engineers of the future by close collaboration with the high tech industry. Fontys University is fully aware of this and developed a Centre of Expertise in High Tech Systems & Materials (CoE HTSM) to close the gap between the university and industry. This CoE is a public-private cooperation where applied research, projects and educational programs for different curricula are being developed and executed. By making the industry partner and giving them a role within the university, the engineering education programs and the future engineering profile can be better aligned in a faster and more structural way.
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