Strategie für Österreich

Executive
Summary
ciety help ensure that research and innovation pro-
cesses address the right questions and contribute
valuable ideas for solutions. Broadening the classic
triple helix model (science and research, industry,
public administration and politics) to a quadruple
helix model (that includes civil society) is thus a
logical step that can increase the innovative capa-
bility of the system and reduce the inherent risk of
failure through the early involvement of society and
the market.
In a one-year, open-ended process involving the
public and stakeholders, a strategy was devel-
oped that presented a vision for 2025 and brought
together existing challenges in three key areas
of action. These were then used as the basis for
developing 14 specific measures to establish open
innovation as a guiding principle for action in the
innovation system. Key differentiators at the inter-
national level were identified such as overcoming
industry, disciplinary and organisational bounda-
ries in a systematic and targeted manner, fostering
new forms of interaction and partnerships between
previously non-traditional knowledge senders and
the possibility to generate new types of knowledge.
Digitalisation, globalisation and the dynamics
and upheavals they generate in society, science
and the economy present huge challenges to small,
knowledge-intensive economies in particular. Austria
has responded by becoming the first member
state of the European Union to develop a comprehensive
open innovation strategy. The aim of this
strategy is to open up, expand and further develop
the innovation system with the purpose of boosting
its efficiency and output orientation, and improving
the digital literacy of innovation actors: Not only do
countries and regions vying for leadership in the
global innovation race have to learn to operate in
innovation environments characterised by diversity
and constant change which are tightly linked
in both real and virtual networks, they must also
actively shape these environments.
The open innovation strategy consequently goes
beyond addressing just the business sector, from
established companies to start-ups: it pays special
attention to the need for a focused expansion of
knowledge and innovation processes in science
and research, civil society and in politics and public
administration as well. To master the increasingly
complex challenges, the various stakeholders must
engage in new forms of cooperation. In particular,
this means integrating civil society players such as
citizens, user crowds, user communities, Footnote 3 associations,
non-profit organisations as well as the
creative industries, arts and cultural organisations
into innovation processes. New actors from civil so-
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