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Mission

The aim of the Open Innovation Network is to disseminate, facilitate and encourage the concept of Open Innovation amongst all type of practitioners including Regional Authorities, Research actors and companies.

Defined as a Work Laboratory the Network is to match two complementary approaches:

• Policy research on the topic of Open Innovation, leading to the dissemination of the latest developments on this field, the identification and dissemination of Best Practices, the assessment of policy frameworks impact on current open Innovation,...
• Practical approach, where new and innovative interregional collaborative initiatives leading to Open Innovation among RTDI Stakeholders can be experimented upon and assessed for the identification and dissemination of new policy frameworks and practices.

The network aims at embracing the concept of Open Innovation to tackle several policy challenges:

• Policy strategies at the regional level mostly focus on the promotion of the competition or on the increase of the competitiveness among companies, but are not so used or effective at the promotion of co-operation at the regional or trans-regional level.
• Open Innovation entails a trans-national perspective in its spirit, demanding new policy governance, in order for regions and countries with common typologies, ambitions, drives and agendas to connect their innovation systems and then gather momentum and become more competitive.
• At the same time, regions and countries compete for the attraction of big firms to their territories. Access to simple, open and collaborative environments, will make regions or countries attractive for big globalised Networks of Innovation.
• As for SMEs, generally they perform lower on the Open Innovation field that larger firms, mostly due to limited internal capabilities on the management of outsourcing services and on the absorption of knowledge. Policies should be addressed thus to the promotion of SMEs in the new internationalized value chains, by networking at the regional and trans-national level with global players and enhancing the build up of their internal knowledge base
• The development and dissemination of high quality basic research across all sectors and beyond regional or national borders, in order to be easily accessible by companies and society, will make the transition of Research and Development results to the markets much faster. New and open mechanisms, platforms and networks for knowledge sharing at the trans-national level should be encouraged.
• The fostering of Universities and public research institutes as drivers on the development of joint knowledge with companies, overcoming the role of knowledge generators, and embracing a more strategic role in the definition of joint Research projects with companies.
• The promotion of strategic and open exploitation of Intellectual Property Rights by Universities and Public Research institutions. New management models on Universities increasing their entrepreneurial mindsets and strategies remains a crucial challenge. Such innovation on the Universities strategies should not in any case preclude their societal role as Scientific and Knowledge generators on general and common interest topics and fields.
• The increase on the mobility of researchers between public research institutes and the private sector, that will enable knowledge flows through people faces challenges on terms of financial incentives, and of legal and regulatory frameworks.