Open-collective Innovation is being recognized as the crucial competitive leverage for European industry sustainability and the only feasible approach to address the societal challenges of the information society. Best in class corporations are currently perceiving that they are approaching a limit of their innovation potential within current organizational structures and are striving to involve in their innovation process the dispersed intelligence of the world (IBM JAMS). As evidenced in major European Initiatives, Concurrent Enterprising and Innovation (CE) is playing more and more the role of reference approach to the achievement of enhanced performances in cost/time reduction and in realized innovations.. The advancement of Information and Communication Technology has enabled the emergence of new collaborative entities, Concurrent Enterprises (Clusters), Virtual Professional Communities (VPCs) and Living Labs (LLABs) which enable surprising new ways for unleashing the co-creative potential of individuals and organization for innovation in the design and manufacturing of products and services.
SMEs and individual professionals can take significant advantage from this approach, acquiring critical mass and access to global opportunities while nurturing their already existing local, regional aggregations.
To this end, a number of initiatives, generally promoted by central or local governmental authorities, have been launched to provide the stakeholders in the local regional business environment with the servicing needed to set up collaborative networks for innovation.
The Finnish Government, during his presidency of the European Union, has launched on 21st November 2006 the European Network of Living Labs (ENOLL) and has issued the Helsinki manifesto: “The European Network of Living Labs establishes a European platform for collaborative and co-creative innovation, where the users are involved in and contribute to the innovation process, as the innovation mechanism, involving partnerships among citizens, business and public bodies. The ENOLL has a strong regional development impact.
In the Lazio Region have been established with the support of the European Space agency (ESA) and the regional development agency a LLAB and a Collaborative Cluster for the co-creation of innovative services, exploiting the huge potential of space based technology for navigation and earth observation.
The Yorkshire region through its Regional Development Agency - Yorkshire Forward - has launched the Virtual Enterprise Networks (VEN) Program, a multisectoral cluster grouping, based on collaborative business model, mainly for SMEs (see ).
and is now introducing VPCs to support the innovation of its Health Care sector. The French Government has launched the initiative “Pôles de Compétitivité”, aimed to create 67 clusters/areas of excellence in order to boost and support the competitiveness of the French economy. The size of the initiative is 1.500 M€.
Other examples are flourishing all over Europe.Within such scenario, Regional Development Agencies and local Government Bodies have an opportunity to play an active role in pulling together resources and supporting the competitiveness and innovation capability of the local industrial and economic texture, by leveraging collaboration between the companies in the cluster and the interplay of Clusters with the Living Labs and the Virtual Communities of Professionals.
The Industrial Forum event, to be held in Rome on December 3rd and 4th 2007, aims at offering an opportunity to Industrial players from different market sectors and from different European Regions and to Regional Development Agencies and local Government Bodies to discuss and learn how to mix the three main ingredients for regional success: Collaboration, Competitiveness and Innovation. The idea is to confront challenges, strategies and experiences, to discuss emerging issues and opportunities from the deployment of new methods and approaches for Regional Innovation:Living Labs and Professional Communities supporting cluster’s creativity and innovation.
The Industrial Forum is a one-day event, structured into two sessions:
· a morning session, built around a panel of representatives from major international enterprises, SME’s Clusters, Professional Associations and Policy makers, providing their own view on the emerging practices for Open-Collective Innovation;
· an afternoon session, organised in 3 parallel workshops, one on best in class solutions for Governance, Business models and enabling ICT in collaborative clusters, the second focusing on the technologies and solutions for enhancing the co-creativity in Living Labs in real life business cases and the 3rd on Frascati Living Lab and the European Network of Living Labs.
The event will be closed by a plenary session, aiming at summarising findings and discussing opportunities of launching joint initiatives.
On 4th December a training session, dedicated to Multipliers, is organized by the ECOLEAD project. The Multipliers are development agencies and clusters seeking to adopt advanced solutions for creating and managing collaborative networks of SMEs and Professionals. The aim of the multipliers program is to provide access to best in class practices and to support the multipliers in planning and launching take-up actions.