Insight Foresight Institute

Transforming Innovation Ecosystems

  • About us
    • Our Community
    • Follow us and share
    • Contact us
  • Ecosystems
    • Corporates
    • Policymakers
    • Startups
  • Solutions
    • Activation & Alignment
    • Insight Foresight
    • Strategy & Governance
    • Training & Mentoring
    • Programming & Implementation
  • Sectors
    • Education
    • Research and Innovation
    • Services
    • Energy and Environment
    • Health and Social Care
    • ICT
    • Manufacturing
    • Transport and Infrastructure
  • Outreach
    • Press
    • Events
    • Videos
    • Reports
    • Position Papers
    • Follow us and share
  • English
    • Spanish
You are here: Home / Archives for Projects Competences / Project Activation

Action, agency, actionable: the semantics of innovation

José Manuel Leceta, chairman of IFI Advisory Board, writes on innovation in the Spanish newspaper, CincoDías.

benidorm

 

“… When I prefaced the book of my friend Ángel Alba ‘Minimum Viable Manual of Innovation’ (Innolandia), I pointed out my particular definition of innovation as knowledge in action. But my interest in philosophy leads me to wonder about the origin of the ideas and concepts in use. Related to action, I find an article this summer on the phenomenology of the agency function that, in its general sense, refers to one of the most important qualities of the human being: the ability to act intentionally and therefore, to achieve goals guided by reason. The semantic richness of the term is also at the base of the innovation agencies to which I have dedicated most of my professional life and which, despite their public nature, participate in an investment and business logic.

To the agency function and agencies, I would like to add in these lines the adjective actionable, which the RAE defines as: said of a mechanism, which can be operated. And this with regard to two proposals to imagine the future post-Covid-19. First of all, the 10 technologies that the Chair of the Rafael del Pino Foundation presented by the entrepreneur scientist and admirable friend Javier García Martínez, whom I met in my time at the head of the European Institute of Technology as one of the three advisers of the founding president, Martin Schuurmans… “

 

Read the full article in Spanish

https://cincodias.elpais.com/cincodias/2020/08/06/opinion/1596704366_711027.html

Credits foto: Manuel Lorenzo EFE

Towards the smart and circular economy

CEO of Insight Foresight Institute, Totti Könnölä, writes in the Telos Magazine on the role of digitalization in circular economy. Digitalization can significantly reduce emission levels and the polluting impact of human activity on the environment.

Screenshot 2020-04-21 at 17.21.06

The economic model that society has lived up to now is the linear one that follows the sequence: extract – manufacture – use – throw away  and that requires large amounts of cheap and easily accessible energy and other resources, with evident negative environmental consequences. The consumption of these resources is reaching the limit of its physical capacity. Luckily companies are increasingly looking for win-win solutions providing simultaneously greater business competitiveness and a better environmental results.

An alternative that has more and more advocates is the so-called Circular Economy, based on the following three principles:

  • design to reduce waste and pollution;
  • keep equipment and materials in use longer ; and
  • regenerate natural systems.

Applying these three principles involves changing value chains and of business models, which makes it possible to transform the entire economy toward a new paradigm, a more sustainable system.

This concept is capturing interest from both companies and policy makers. In line with the ‘The New European Green Deal’, the European Commission adopts an EU industrial strategy to tackle the double challenge of green and digital transformation. The goal is to harness the potential of digital transformation, which is a key enabler to achieve the goals of the Green Deal. Also in Spain, the Government has elaborated the strategy to promote the transition to the Circular Economy. Including this article results from the debate organized by the Foundation Spain Digital indicating among other initiatives real and growing interest in circular economy.

More information

Download the article in Spanish (free)

Access to the full issue of the Telos including this article.

Task force to address water scarcity in Southern Europe

The CEO of Insight Foresight Institute, Totti Könnölä, participates in the task force of EIT-KICs (Climate-KIC, EIT Food, EIT Manufacturing, EIT RawMaterials). This Body of Knowledge works on finding innovative solutions for water scarcity in Southern Europe.

Water plays a central role in how societies mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change. A holistic approach considering water, the biosphere, and the anthroposphere is required to provide sustainable agricultural and economic systems that will allow us to decelerate climate change, protect us from extreme events and adapt to the unavoidable at the same time.

Main problems to tackle:

  • mitigating water scarcity and drought situations,
  • reducing the over usage of water,
  • wasting less water with the existing resources

In order to have a wide representation of knowledge, representatives from different sectors, including policy, industry, civil society and research and innovation participate in the process to support in the knowledge sharing and through innovation across the South of Europe.

Building Regional Foresight Capability in Chile

The co-founder of IFI, Totti Könnölä co-authored the European Foresight Platform brief on the foresight programme, of which overall objective was to enhance innovation-driven sustainable economic development of the Antofagasta region in Chile. The main purposes of the foresight
were to:
  1. improve the foresight capability in the region, especially for the partner organisations,
  2. enhance collaboration between the industry, government and research organisations and
  3. support the creation of a strategic research agenda for the region on a topic chosen by the partner organisations.

Building  Regional  Foresight  Capability in Chile (pdf)

View my Flipboard Magazine.

Insight Foresight Institute (IFI)
Avda Concha Espina 8-1 Dcha
28036 Madrid, Spain
info@if-institute.org
tel. +34 600842168

 

View my Flipboard Magazine.

Copyright © 2023 · Insight Foresight Institute · Terms and Privacy · Cookies · Fotos: Shutterstock · info@if-institute.org · Tel. +34 600 842 168
  • English
  • Español