Solutions Strategy

IFI in the Finnish policy research seminar: Growth ecosystems as an innovation policy tool

The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation TEKES and the Finnish Innovation Fund SITRA organised in autumn 2016 an international workshop to compile international research data on developing ecosystems. Totti Könnölä, CEO of Insight Foresight Institute, presented the paper “Co-creating Pan-European Innovation Ecosystems: reflections from the EIT”.

Competition in the global economy has increasingly become a battle between various networks or ecosystems. Companies can often no longer be competitive just using their own know-how. Instead, and in addition to their own competitive advantages, they need the benefits offered by strong partners. Such partners may include other companies and public sector or civil society organisations. Various business incubators, business accelerators and organisations specialising in promoting the use of various technologies may have an important role as platforms for testing, developing and distributing new ideas.

See all the papers presented in the seminar.

Sharing Economy…… End of the game?

A lot of businesses within the digital economy are structured around the so called digital platforms. Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook are platforms, and up to a 70% of the new unicorns, with Uber leading them, as well. In USA and Asia the companies based in platforms represent a substantial part of the new digital economy. Surprisingly, Europe, contributes just a 4% in the total capitalization of the global platforms.

It is clear, that we should act in order for Europe to take advantage of what is still to come with the digital economy, which is a lot. That’s how the EC understands it, recently publishing two statements regarding the challenges and opportunities that the digital platforms represent for the European market; and also about the sharing economy.

Link to the full article in Spanish.

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:

improve the foresight capability in the region, especially for the partner organisations,
enhance collaboration between the industry, government and research organisations and
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)

People, Places & Policies: promoting systemic innovation and a stronger entrepreneurial culture in Europe

Innovation and entrepreneurship are key drivers for economic growth and competitiveness. While recent policies also aim at promoting sustainability and better governance, many analysts have pointed to Europe’s inability to create a suitable environment in which a vivid entrepreneurial culture could flourish.

The event, organised by the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) in partnership with the European Parliament, will be hosted by Eva Paunova MEP on 27th April 2016 at the European Parliament. The event intends to validate a new report from CEPS on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Europe: People, Places and Policies, the result of a six-month Task Force involving authoritative scholars, industry experts, entrepreneurs, practitioners and representatives of EU and international institutions.

Insight Foresight Institute (IFI) has played pertinent role in this taskforce chaired by José Manuel Leceta (Chairman of IFI). Furthermore, Totti Könnölä (Managing Director of IFI) has acted as a co-rapporteur. We highly appreciate that some of the board and council members have also participated in the taskforce meetings.

The outcome is a set of policy recommendations that aim at improving the overall environment and approach for entrepreneurship and innovation in Europe, and a new understanding of the role that “people, places and policies” can and should play within the current context of the European Union. More specifically, the CEPS Task Force agreed upon three key principles: future EU policy for entrepreneurship and innovation should be systemic, simple and, more importantly, tied to societal needs.

For full Agenda click here

Registration click here