On this day we were all summoned to a very interesting hearing at the Swedish Agency for Innovation Systems (VINNOVA). The reason was a continuation of a pre-study financed by VINNOVA called Leading Innovation.
The purpose of the study (that ended late 2015) was to investigate how innovation should be lead, coordinated and organized in Sweden. The project analyzed the circumstances for leading innovation in a broader context with the perspectives of both the industry, the public sector and the general good. It also ran several workshops to build an understanding of how these target groups would like for innovation management to be coordinated and provided from a national perspective. And this is where my interest lies.
The Leading Innovation pre-study report pointed in the direction of the research institutes to step up and take the ball. What the respondents in the study had proclaimed was that they would prefer the go-to-place for innovation management to be sanctioned by leading expertise with a research base that is at least partially “neutral” or governmentally managed. Since everything in these results implies institutional governance, we have initiated a new pre-study within the realm of the Swedish research institutes.
The hearing included several presentations from great speakers and also introduced the perspectives of trade associations, trade unions and more. And the discussion was very fruitful in terms of how such a central node should function, how it could be organized, what parties that could and should be involved, how it should be financed, etc. To our satisfaction most of the day confirmed our aspirations for the institutes to maneuver this function, so after a full day’s conference we were strengthened in mind that we are pursuing the right course.
