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

WHITE SPACES INNOVATION IN SWEDENas conventional mass production using industrialised „productivist‟ chemical, pesticideand other conventional control technologies. A once strong but now fading path dependencewas on shipbuilding in Malmö but with the closure of the Kockums yard in the1980s that has led to redundancy and migration of shipyard workers. By early 2010 thewestern harbour area had been re-invented as a centre of „cognitive-cultural‟ and otherservice industry. Other activity also assiduously promoted by a highly capable regionaldevelopment agency includes mobile telephony („Mobile Heights‟), electronic security,the Skåne film industry and new media, including computer gaming. An emergentcleantech industry („Sustainable Hub‟) and a Systems Resilience initiative („TrainingRegions‟) are also beginning to be visible.The Skåne region development authorities prioritise cluster-building but also the explorationof value in the so-called „white spaces‟ between cluster fields („adjacent possible‟)where innovation opportunities are considered to lie. Accordingly, efforts havebeen successfully made to encourage crossover practices between the film industry(home of the Wallander detective series) and the tourism industry, resulting in a new€60 million „film tourism‟ industry centred on Ystad in coastal southern Skåne. Thisalso connects to the hospitality and culinary tourism aspects of the food-tourism platform.Another sphere in which the regime promotes both emergent clustering and transversalityis in relation to clean food packaging with projects bringing joint research andtesting of starch (from potatoes) as a degradable bioplastic and other variants of cleanand reduced packaging. Lead packaging firm Tetrapak is faced with the imperative toinnovate as consumer demand for cleaner and less packaging leads to reductions inmarket demand that resulted in reduction of overseas and domestic employment. Thecentrally-funded Skåne Food Innovation Network has been a big promoter of functionalfood technology, receiving €10 million over ten years, to develop it and the food clustermore generally. In 2010 these efforts were met with considerable success when the mainhealth drinks producer Skåne Dairies sold its main ProViva portfolio to French multinationalDanone for €50 million. These clusters constitute specific regional STSs in linewith the MLP perspective.Accordingly, Skåne Region is committed to giving greater identity and focus to itsestablished and nascent industries by promoting its cluster policy which targets abouteight fields. However, regime management builds upon transversal thinking and practicesuch as that advanced in Blackwell et al., (2010) about the evident advantages offilling regional „white spaces‟ by stimulating the discovery of „revealed relatedness‟ andpromoting transversal or interface projects and initiatives among clusters. As it standsthe clusters are mostly new and rather weak, except for food and film. However,Skåne‟s position on the Swedish periphery but in a Scandinavian core due to its proximityto Copenhagen, means geographic proximity is important, something recognised inthe status of the international Medicon Valley life science cluster between Skåne andthe Danish capital.44