A Proposal for a Standard With Innovation Management System

Peter Kiryushin, Bala Mulloth and Tatiana Iakovleva
Some of the interregional networking initiatives don’t seem to be very promising anymore or at least
the level of awareness about these initiatives are not as high as it was before (Vintergaard 2012).
There is also a degree of skepticism about future of transnational collaboration due to unequal
distribution of benefits for between Danish and Swedish sides (Antonsson 2012). The indirect
evidence for that – interviewees were more interested to talk about the innovation systems of their
countries, rather than transnational innovation system of Øresund. Moreover, as it was portrayed
some of the initiatives has intraregional rather than interregional focus.
Nevertheless, there are opportunities for the new stage of interregional development, which could be
associated with a low-carbon transition, cleantech and sustainable energy solutions (Coenen 2012;
Rasmussen 2012; Steenstrup 2012). In particular, cleantech & climate change become an important
for Øresund Committee agenda strategy (“The ambition is to resemble something as Medicon Valley
Alliance only in the area as “cleantech and climate” [Steenstrup 2012]); there is a special group was
established in the Committee and cleantech goals was prioritized in first international cross-border
collaboration. Secondly, the new portion of finance from European Union Interreg fund for low-carbon
development was recently received (Steenstrup 2012).
5. Discussion and conclusion
The purpose of this paper was to get a holistic view on the regional development, its innovation
system related to cleantech, entrepreneurship and triple helix collaboration on the example of the
Øresund region and to answer the question of how can entrepreneurship in clean technologies serves
as a driver for regional innovation system.
The interviewees provided some insights, based on their personal experiences and their tacit
knowledge. New knowledge was not always developed as a result of the answers, but it was rather
“weaved” by the both parties in a process of conversation. Interviewees covered different issues
during the conversation: some of them described more how organizations are interacting and
institutions are functioning, whereas the others told more about specific functions and role of their
organizations. Although there were new issues discovered during the interviews, there were not many
overlaps in answers and there were not many contradictions in the opinions of different interviewees.
Furthermore, new information obtained from the representatives mostly complimented what was
already known from the literature and from other participants
It was suggested that other regions could learn from Øresund experiences related to cleantech, triple
helix and cross-border cooperation (Lindhqvist 2012; Coenen 2012; Rasmussen 2012). It is important
that these experiences not necessarily should be positive, but it could be negative ones as well
(Lindhqvist 2012). Interregional collaboration in Øresund for the development of the research-based
innovations seems not as promising as it expected to be several years ago (Rasmussen 2012;
Vintergaard 2012; Antonsson 2012). The biotech was a leading industry for interregional scientific
cooperation (Lundquist and Trippl 2009; Hanson 2012) in the past, but it might be not so perspective
in the future (Antonsson 2012). At the same time the region has a strong agenda for low-carbon
transition with specific goals, which requires implementation of cleantech innovations.
Mutual interest of Danish and Swedish sides on the national, regional and municipal levels as well as
support from the European Union are important for cleantech development in Øresund. Interregional
networks, triple-helix collaboration and branding are needed to achieve the same level of success as
Medicon Valley Alliance, but new specific policy-measures and incentives seem to be appropriate
after a certain stage. Some of these measures could include: redirection of public funds towards
cleantech-oriented innovations, their dissemination and implementation, development of
transformative “sociotechnical” innovations (Steward 2012a; Coenen 2012); promotion of cooperation
of cleantech innovators and startups with the mature non-cleantech industry and finding new
opportunities for cleantech to “tap into existing infrastructure” (Coenen 2012). Fiscal incentives and
tax breaks to support cleantech technologies development in small and medium enterprises and
transforming or diverting regular procurement into public procurement of cleantech innovations could
be reasonable as well (Edquist 2010).
Our findings reveal that in order to innovations in cleantech to be utilized, the efforts of entrepreneurs
are necessary to promote knowledge spillover from research institutes and “locked” systems into
business environment. That finding corresponds with recent claims of Acs, Braunerhjelm, Audretsch
and Carlsson (2009) who suggest a Knowledge Spillover Theory of Entrepreneurship in which the
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