White Spaces Innovation in Sweden - Innovation policy for ... - Vinnova

WHITE SPACES INNOVATION IN SWEDENbasis for novel knowledge recombinations and an influence on innovative path dependence.It is interesting to see that in many countries this has put city-regions in a centralposition as test beds and innovation orchestrators. A strategic issue for the design ofGrand Challenge initiatives is to organise a process that explores the value-creatingopportunities related to Grand Challenges or the uncontested market spaces betweenclusters („white spaces‟). Exploring the market potential of Grand Challenges requiresforesight and also design of a foresight process that enables cross-cultural knowledgeexchange among enterprises. The assessment of potential is to a large extent conditionedby present capabilities. New capabilities are developed through reconfigurationof existing expertise and through investment in research and other forms of expertise.Relatedness is a keyword in terms of lateral interaction among firms and clusters. As faras Grand Challenges or system innovation is concerned this process is also a mix of topdownand bottom-up (the multi-level perspective; MLP). It is also a process that involvesbusiness, knowledge providers and public agencies.1.3 The implementation of the projectObjectiveThe objective of the study was to present and to some extent test methods to makeGrand Challenges actionable in an innovation system context. On the one hand thisrequires methods to identify new uncontested market spaces – structural holes, whitefields or spaces, otherwise also known as „blue oceans‟ of market opportunity but littlecompetition. On the other it also requires methods that make it possible to take existingcapabilities into account as enablers and constraints.Work processThe work process followed began with an overview of what has been elsewhere relatedto Grand Challenges and what approaches and methods were utilised. The purpose ofthat was to get an initial idea of how to frame Grand Challenges from an action perspective.By actionable we here mean that it is possible to mobilise a group of stakeholdersand “interpreters” that are prepared to participate in a design discourse starting from theinitial framing of the issue. Absorptive capacity for knowledge spillovers at clusterinterfaces (transversality) should be optimal. A too broad framing will probably result ina situation where too few will feel a sufficient sense of urgency and if it is too narrowlydefined we face the risk of missing the transversal perspective. The second path takenwas to learn by interacting with individual clusters and stakeholders in the VINNVÄXTprogram, Tillväxtverket‟s cluster program and in Region Skåne. In this approach thestarting point was to ask what strategic growth means, which Grand Challenges have aplace in this context, and how they are mobilised. We conducted interviews with 15clusters and received secondary information from others which means that we haveinformation from most of the more “mature” cluster initiatives in Sweden. In addition19