Concept development for a European Union Idea and Innovation Market June 2016 FINAL REPORT EUROPEAN COMMISSION Directorate-General for Research and Innovation Directorate B — Open Innovation and Open Science Unit B.1 — Open Innovation Contact: Denis Dambois E-mail: [email protected] [email protected] European Commission B-1049 Brussels EUROPEAN COMMISSION Concept development for a European Union Idea and Innovation Market A report by Digital Catapult Directorate-General for Research and Innovation 2016 EUROPE DIRECT is a service to help you find answers to your questions about the European Union Freephone number (*): 00 800 6 7 8 9 10 11 (*) Certain mobile telephone operators do not allow access to 00 800 numbers or these calls may be billed LEGAL NOTICE Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on behalf of the Commission is responsible for the use which might be made of the following information. The views expressed in this publication are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Commission. More information on the European Union is available on the Internet (http://europa.eu). Cataloguing data can be found at the end of this publication. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2016 ISBN 978-92-79-61462-0 doi 10.2777/126363 © European Union, 2016 Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged. Concept Development for the European Union Idea and Innovation Market CONTENTS Abstract ....................................................................................................... vi Résumé ....................................................................................................... vi Executive summary .................................................................................... vii Note de synthèse .......................................................................................... x 1 Introduction ......................................................................................... 1 2 Methodology ......................................................................................... 2 3 Findings ................................................................................................ 3 4 5 3.1 Desk research ............................................................................................ 3 3.2 Online survey............................................................................................ 10 3.3 Key findings from telephone interviews ......................................................... 14 3.4 Learning from the Open Permission Platform (OPP) ........................................ 25 3.5 Conclusions .............................................................................................. 27 3.6 Recommendations ..................................................................................... 29 Visual scheme ..................................................................................... 31 4.1 Application programming interface ............................................................... 32 4.2 EIIM portal ............................................................................................... 33 4.3 Overlaying Distributed Ledger functionality on the visual scheme...................... 34 Implementation of the EIIM ............................................................... 36 5.1 Development plan ..................................................................................... 36 5.2 Risk analysis and possible mitigation ............................................................ 38 5.3 Proposed productivity value add analysis ...................................................... 40 Annex 1 - Organisations Interviewed Annex 2 – References Annex 3 – Concept visualisation Annex 4 – Productivity Gains v ABSTRACT The European Commission would like to establish whether a European Innovation and Ideas Marketplace (EIIM) would be beneficial to maximise European innovation and thus maximise the economic and societal benefits of European research. Desk research, interviews, a survey and learning from other ventures were employed to assess the merit of such a proposal. There was strong support in principle for a solution that seeks to build on the many innovation platforms already in existence. An API-based approach allowing key information to be shared with the EIIM was deemed to be most appropriate. It was acknowledged that support for development may need to be provided for the partner platforms if actual implementation is to actually happen. An incremental approach to platform development and roll out is described with a number of key decision points on different aspects of the platform. The overall cost of the venture was estimated to be between €3.1 million and €4.0 million. RÉSUMÉ La Commission européenne souhaite évaluer l’utilité d’un Marché européen de l’Innovation et des Idées (MEII) pour maximiser l’innovation européenne, et, par conséquent, les retombées économiques et sociétales de la recherche européenne. Pour évaluer les potentiels de cette proposition, nous avons utilisé la recherche documentaire, conduit des entretiens, réalisé un sondage et nous sommes appuyés sur de bonnes pratiques. Nous avons rencontré un fort soutien pour une solution se basant sur les nombreuses plateformes d’innovation déjà existantes. L’approche jugée la plus pertinente est celle basée sur API, permettant de partager les informations clés avec le MEII. Il ressort des travaux que, si la solution proposée devait être mise en œuvre, un soutien dans le développement pourrait être nécessaire pour les plateformes partenaires. Cette étude présente les différentes étapes de développement et de déploiement de la plateforme, ainsi que les moments clés où prendre des décisions sur les différents aspects de la plateforme. Le coût global de la démarche a été estimé à 3,1 à 4,0 millions d’Euros. vi EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Europe has an abundance of ideas and research results with considerable innovation potential. However, much of that potential remains unrealised because the necessary interaction between those with the ideas and those who can help them to generate successful products and services fails to happen. One possible solution to address this failure is to create a European idea and innovation market (EIIM). The concept is for a ‘platform of platforms’ bringing together existing data repositories associated with ideas and innovation across Europe. For this short study, a predominantly qualitative approach has been adopted including: Limited desk research to identify existing online ideas and innovation markets currently available in Europe. A web survey exploring potential demand for an online ideas and innovation market. Telephone interviews with organisations around Europe. Learnings from the Digital Catapult’s own work in creating the Open Permissions Platform (OPP) and more recently in distributed ledger systems. There is considerable support for the Commission to undertake an initiative to develop an ideas and innovation market. Expressions in favour ran at more than 75% in both the survey and the telephone interviews. It was broadly felt that such an approach was the most likely to be productive to stimulate innovation and other public policy initiatives were only being referenced in terms of the seed funding for the development of EIIM. The interviews did garner support for the idea that the existing situation propagates market failures. There was recognition that there are systemic failures at many levels of idea sharing and in innovation such as information asymmetry and networking failures that impede the diffusion of information. However, this was not a rigorous market examination so the full position with respect to market failure is unclear. Having done the research and interviews, we think that the strongest value add comes from productivity gains rather than addressing market failure. There was a very clear consensus from the telephone interviews supporting a platform-of-platforms approach to the development of the EIIM. This is because significant investment has already been undertaken in existing platforms and this investment should be built upon. Furthermore, each existing platform has a valuable ecosystem which has taken time to build. An approach whereby the EIIM attempted to replace all of these existing platforms would destroy the value of the investments already made, undermine the existing communities which have taken years to build and would probably end up damaging rather than enhancing the free flow of ideas around Europe. vii Existing platforms come in a wide variety of different forms and it is likely that more platforms will emerge over time. Therefore, the EIIM needs to be interoperable with all types of platform. This implies that an API1-enabled distributed system allowing all players to fully and equally interact is the most appropriate approach to its implementation. Such an approach will ensure that the content owners are in charge of what the EIIM sees, making it much more likely that the content will be kept up to date. It also allows owners the ability to take content down if in negotiation for exclusive access with a third party. Evidence from the telephone interviews and from the Digital Catapult’s own experience developing the Open Permissions Platform (OPP) is that third parties often do not have the internal technical capabilities or the time to effectively engage externally to share their information even if they perceive a real benefit from so doing. Managing the potential barriers to the development of the EIIM is important for its success. There are a variety of issues to be taken into consideration such as legal and regulatory barriers. Through our research we did not identify any potential legal and regulatory barriers to the EIIM per se. However, very careful consideration will need to be given to the drafting of agreements between the EIIM and partner platforms to ensure that the rights and responsibilities of both parties are clearly defined. As with any significant data handling project, the appropriate information management processes covering privacy and confidentiality need to be incorporated into the design in a professional manner. A phased approach to development as recommended by many of the interviewees also offers an approach to minimising risks and barriers. The move to actual trading could be possible in limited circumstances. Here, carefully defined types of trading can be supported but, again, the rights and responsibilities of both parties will need to be tightly defined. Where the limited circumstances for trading are not met, then the platform should provide the contact information necessary for off-platform dialogue. Building upon these findings, we make the following recommendations: There is good evidence that the European Commission could consider proceeding with the next phase of development of the EIIM concept. An API-enabled approach should be core to the platform implementation. The third party platforms should be resourced to become part of the market in addition to the expenditure at the centre. This should cover the full costs 1 API – Application programming interface - expresses a software component in terms of its operations, inputs, outputs, and underlying types, defining functionalities that are independent of their respective implementations, which allows definitions and implementations to vary without compromising the interface (Source Wikipedia) viii initially but may be tapered over time as the benefits of participation become more evident. A tapered approach also creates an incentive to be an early adopter. The design of the platform should be user-centric so that different types of users are guided in a way that keeps them engaged and delivers to them what they need. We have developed a phased high-level implementation plan for the EIIM. An investment between €3.1 to €4.0 million would be needed to bring the EIIM into existence and develop it to critical mass. The approach should be future proofed against further technological development by being intrinsically scalable and adaptable. Furthermore, consideration should be given to the use of distributed ledger technology and so called smart contracts which are emerging and would seem to have a natural application to the issues that EIIM is planning to address. Making the platform commercially self-sustaining will be challenging. We have there suggested a two-year development and evaluation of different potential options for full commercialisation. For the level of investment suggested, it is likely that some further evaluation work needs to be done before implementation to demonstrate the value add and return on investment of the platform through productivity gains (and this should be set in the context of competition, enterprise, investment and skills as well as innovation). In addition, professional legal opinion may need to be taken on any potential legal and regulatory barriers which may only be possible to consider once the full design has been agreed. ix NOTE DE SYNTHÈSE L’Europe dispose d’une abondance d’idées et de résultats de recherche aux vastes potentiels d’innovation. Cependant, une bonne part de ce potentiel n’est pas exploité, car la rencontre entre ceux qui génèrent les idées et ceux qui peuvent les transformer en produits et services performants n’a pas lieu. La création d’un Marché européen de l’Innovation et des Idées (MEII) peut être l’une des solutions permettant de remédier à ce problème. Il s’agirait d’une “plateforme de plateformes” rassemblant les bases de données d’idées / innovation déjà existantes en Europe. Pour cette étude, une approche essentiellement qualitative a été retenue, comprenant: - Une recherche documentaire limitée, permettant d’identifier les marchés d’idées et d’innovation en ligne déjà existants en Europe Un sondage en ligne permettant d’identifier la demande potentielle pour un marché d’idées et d’innovation en ligne. Des entretiens téléphoniques avec différentes organisations en Europe. Une réflexion sur les expériences de la Digital Catapult (création de l’OPP, Open Permissions Platform – Une plateforme open source permettant de gérer les licenses / Plus récemment, la technologie des registres distribués). L’idée du développement par la Commission d’un Marché européen de l’Innovation et des Idées a été fortement plébiscitée. Plus de 75% des personnes interrogées, que ce soit par sondage en ligne ou par entretien téléphonique, se sont déclarées favorables à cette initiative. Cette approche a été ressentie comme la plus appropriée pour stimuler l’innovation, tandis que d’autres initiatives de politique publique apparaissent pouvoir être le financement initial permettant le développement du MEII. Les entretiens ont permis de soutenir l’idée que la situation actuelle entretient les échecs du marché. Il apparaît que le processus de partage d’idées et l’innovation souffrent de lacunes systémiques à plusieurs niveaux. Ainsi, les asymétries de l’information et les échecs de la mise en réseau, qui entravent la diffusion de l’information. Cependant, nous n’avons pas conduit un examen rigoureux du marché, donc la question des échecs du marché reste peu claire. Sur la base de notre recherche et des entretiens que nous avons menés, nous pensons que la valeur ajoutée la plus importante vient des gains de productivité et non de la question des défaillances du marché. Lors des entretiens téléphoniques, un consensus très clair s’est dégagé autour de l’approche consistant en une “plateforme des plateformes” pour le développement du MEII. En effet, les plateformes existantes ont déjà bénéficié d’investissements importants, qui doivent constituer la base de futurs développements. De plus, x chaque plateforme existante présente un écosystème précieux, construit au fil du temps. Si le MEII adoptait une approche consistant à remplacer toutes les plateformes existantes, cela réduirait à néant la valeur des investissements déjà réalisés, affaiblirait les communautés existantes, construites au cours de plusieurs années, et finirait sans doute par être dommageable au libre flux d’idées en Europe plutôt que le libérer. Les plateformes existantes présentent des formes variées, et on peut imaginer que d’autres plateformes vont voir le jour dans les années à venir. Par conséquent, le MEII doit être interopérable avec tout type de plateforme. Ainsi, l’approche la plus appropriée pour sa mise en œuvre est un système se basant sur une API2, permettant à tous les acteurs d’interagir totalement et de manière égale. Cette approche permet de garantir que les propriétaires du contenu sont responsables du contenu affiché sur le MEII, et par conséquent, de maintenir ce contenu à jour. Elle permet également aux propriétaires du contenu de retirer leur information si celleci fait l’objet de négociations exclusives avec un tiers. Les entretiens téléphoniques conduits par la Digital Catapult, ainsi que sa propre expérience de développement de l’OPP (Open Permissions Platform – voir cidessus) ont montré que les tiers n’ont souvent ni les capacités techniques internes, ni le temps, pour partager leur information à l’externe, et ce même s’ils en perçoivent les bénéfices. Pour permettre la réussite du MEII, il est essentiel de gérer les obstacles potentiels à son développement. Une série d’enjeux doivent être considérés, comme les aspects légaux et réglementaires. Au cours de notre recherche, nous n’avons pas identifié d’obstacle légal ou réglementaire en soi. Cependant, une attention particulière devra être portée à l’établissement de contrats entre le MEII et les plateformes partenaires, afin que les droits et responsabilités de chaque partie soit clairement définis. Comme avec tout projet impliquant du traitement de données, il faudra intégrer dans la conception du projet les règles de gestion de l’information relative à la vie privée et à la confidentialité. De nombreuses personnes interrogées ont recommandé une démarche par étapes, permettant de minimiser les risques et obstacles. L’évolution vers une transaction réelle est envisageable dans un nombre limité de situations. Certains types d’échanges commerciaux, bien circonscrits, peuvent être soutenus, mais là encore les droits et responsabilités des deux parties devront être définis en détail. Si les circonstances particulières permettant la négociation ne sont pas réunies, la plateforme devrait pouvoir fournir les coordonnées du contact, permettant de poursuivre un dialogue en dehors de la plateforme. 2 API – Application programming interface – Interface de programmation applicative - est une façade clairement délimitée par laquelle un logiciel offre des services à d'autres logiciels. L'objectif est de fournir une porte d'accès à une fonctionnalité en cachant les détails de la mise en œuvre. Une interface de programmation peut comporter des classes, des méthodes ou des fonctions, des types de données et des constantes. (Source: Wikipedia) xi Sur la base de ces constats, nous faisons les recommandations suivantes: - Il existe des données suffisantes permettant de recommander à la Commission Européenne d’envisager de passer à la prochaine phase de développement du MEII. - La plateforme devrait se baser sur une API. - Les plateformes tierces devraient bénéficier de moyens pour participer au marché, en sus des dépenses liées à la plateforme centrale. Il faudrait couvrir les coûts globaux au départ, ce qui s’effilera avec le temps quand les avantages d’une participation deviendront plus manifestes. Cette démarche permet également d’être incitative, et encourage l’adoption rapide du système. - La conception de la plateforme doit être centrée sur l’utilisateur, et faire en sorte qu’une variété d’utilisateurs s’y retrouvent, continuent à l’utiliser, et y rencontrent leurs besoins. - Nous avons développé un plan de haut niveau pour la mise en œuvre par étapes du MEII. Un investissement de 3,1 à 4,0 millions d’euros serait nécessaire pour faire voir le jour au MEII, et le développer pour qu’il atteigne une masse critique. - L’approche doit être pérenne, capable de s’adapter à de futures évolutions technologiques, en étant par nature évolutive et flexible. De plus, il conviendrait de considérer l’usage de la technologie des registres distribués et des “contrats intelligents”, qui émergent et semblent pouvoir s’appliquer naturellement aux enjeux auxquels le MEII souhaite répondre. - Il sera difficile de faire de cette plateforme une plateforme commerciale autofinancée. Nous avons proposé une phase de développement et d’évaluation de deux ans permettant de considérer les différentes options pour un passage complet vers une plateforme commerciale. - Etant donné le niveau d’investissement proposé, il sera sans doute nécessaire de réaliser quelques travaux d’évaluation supplémentaires avant la mise en œuvre, afin de démontrer la valeur ajoutée et le retour sur investissement apporté par la plateforme en termes de gains de productivité. (Il conviendra alors de se situer dans le contexte de compétition, entreprise, investissement et compétences ainsi que celui de l’innovation). Par ailleurs, l’avis d’un juriste professionnel pourrait être nécessaire concernant les éventuels obstacles légaux et réglementaires, avis qui ne pourrait intervenir qu’après validation de la conception de la plateforme. xii 1 INTRODUCTION Europe has an abundance of ideas and research results with considerable innovation potential. However, much of that potential remains unrealised because the necessary interaction between those with the ideas and those who can help them to generate successful products and services fails to happen. This unrealised potential is regarded as a market failure and the European Commission is considering what types of actions could be taken to address this failure so as to enhance the European economy and improve citizens’ lives. One possible solution to address this failure is to create a European idea and innovation market (EIIM). The concept is for a ‘platform of platforms’ bringing together existing data repositories associated with ideas and innovation across Europe. Such an integrated market would enable greater circulation of ideas around Europe. The sort of ideas that could be circulated include promising research results, prototypes, know-how, proposals for crowdfunding, social innovation ideas and crowdsourcing, citizens’ innovation and intellectual property. As well as circulating ideas, the market could be used to bring together those with ideas and those who have design expertise, manufacturing expertise, commercialisation, sources of funding and other relevant skills. This notion considered by the European Commission is in tune with the development of an open innovation (OI) approach which has seen great developments derived from collaborations between individuals and organisations rather than from single organisations trying to accumulate all the capabilities necessary to generate and exploit ideas. Such an open approach has been responsible for considerable success in generating excellent technology developments in the Framework and Horizon 2020 programmes run by the Commission. They are now keen to investigate if an extension of this open approach, to include an online market could deliver greater exploitation of the research base and support innovation in Europe more widely. The European Commission put out a contract to tender seeking advice on the suitability of this idea and alternatives if appropriate. The Digital Catapult in the UK was the successful bidder to study the issue and provide that advice to the Commission. The brief was specific in terms of the need to assess the suitability of the EIIM and allowed for the conclusion that such a solution might not be the most suitable approach. If this was the case, then the Digital Catapult was expected to identify what other public policy measures at EU level would support the utilisation of unused ideas and the effective circulation/scale-up of these ideas. This report describes the work that was done and the conclusions drawn by the Digital Catapult on the suitability of the EIIM as a solution to the problems identified and how such a market might be implemented. The remaining sections in the report are as follows: 1 Section 2 describes our methodology. Section 3 describes our findings, draws conclusions and makes recommendations. Section 4 presents a visual scheme and explains how a user might interact with EIIM. Section 5 describes a simple plan for implementation of the EIIM looking at the overall vision for such a platform and how the service should be rolled out together with risks and mitigations. In addition to this main body, the report contains a number of annexes: Annex 1: A list of the organisations interviewed in the course of the research undertaken. Annex 2: A list of relevant publications referred to in the course of the report. Annex 3: Concept visualisation designed to stimulate thinking on the market. Annex 4: Looks at the five drivers of productivity gains. 2 METHODOLOGY Within the scope of this limited study, in order to gain a rounded picture of the potential for EIIM, we have adopted a predominantly qualitative mixed methods approach: Limited desk research to identify existing online ideas and innovation markets currently available in Europe. A web survey exploring potential demand for an online ideas and innovation market which attracted 40 responses. A concept visualisation showing how a portal into such a market might look was developed to add context to responses. This is shown in Annex 3. Telephone interviews with 27 people from 22 different organisations around Europe. These included national innovation agencies, national research agencies, associations representing research and technology organisations, representatives from other parts of the European Commission, providers of existing commercial and non-commercial online markets, policy organisations, independent non-profit organisations, patent offices, various collaborative communities and knowledge transfer networks and academics. Learnings from the Digital Catapult’s own work in creating the Open Permissions Platform (OPP). This platform, designed to reduce friction for licensees and licensors of digital copyright work by creating a single 2 overarching market linked to other content platforms faced similar challenges to those facing EIIM. The web survey was open to both demand and supply sides. The majority of responses came from the demand side. Issues raised in the survey were explored in more depth in the telephone interviews and all of the people we spoke with were asked to comment on both supply side and demand side issues. 3 FINDINGS Information from all of the above activities has been analysed to inform the visual scheme set out in section 4 and the service roll out plan in section 5. 3.1 Desk research The aim of the desk research was to consider the existing market for internet-based innovation support platforms. It is clear that there is quite a diversity of such platforms already in existence and it is beneficial to examine some different models. We did a limited amount of desk research which identified some relevant thinking and examples. The learning from this research is included here. Please note that this is the result of limited research and is not intended to be comprehensive. Despite a large increase in the number of innovation support platforms in the last 15 years, relatively little information on the impacts of such platforms is available in the public domain because open innovation has mainly been studied at the firm level rather than across groups of organisations3 and the private providers of open innovation platforms are relatively new and still in private hands (rather than listed on a stock exchange where more information must be disclosed). However, there are relevant publications. Commercial providers One of the few publications in the field of internet platform intermediaries comes from Hossain4 which provides five case studies of known innovation platforms: InnoCentive, Nine Sigma, Your Core, Yet2.com and IdeaConnection. Hossain provides an overview of the characteristics of the five platforms as shown in Table 1. This contains implications regarding a number of points relevant to the development of an EIIM: 3 West, J., Salter, A., Vanhaverbeke, W., & Chesbrough, H. (2014). Open innovation: The next decade. Research Policy, 43 (5), 805-811. 4 Hossain, M. (2012a): Performance and Potential of Open Innovation Intermediaries. Procedia – Social and Behavioural Sciences, 58, 754-764. 3 There is a commercial market place for the type of services envisaged by EIIM In most cases the level of engagement with people is high – even when substantial fees are required The main targets of commercial activity are large organisations Mokter Hossain / Procedia - Social and Behavior al Sciences 58 (2012) 754 – 764 760 The growth rate for these organisations is high showing increasing demand for for their services. remarkable; examples, the growth rates for InnoCentive and NineSigma are 80% and 20% respectively. This growth phenomenon is very rare in any other business sectors. Intermediaries play very pivotal roles through coordinating between potential seekers and solvers. They help solutions seekers to formulate problems so that potential1: solvers can get clear idea. of the key features of five prominent innovation Table Comparison intermediaries Table 1 Comparison of Salient Features of Five Prominent Open Innovation Intermediaries Innocentive NineSigma YourEncore Yet2.com IdeaConnection Launch 2001 2000 2003 1999 2007 Office USA USA, Europe & Japan USA Canada Spin -Off Yes No Yes USA, Europe & Japan No Spin From or Supported by Eli Lilly N. A P&G, Eli Lilly, Boeing and General Mills N. A No Revenue Source People Engaged Award (US$) Posting fees and Commission fees 250000 Service Fee Service Fee Service Fee Service Fee 2 million plus 5,000 120,000 80,000 5 000 to 1 000 000 Based on Agreement Based on Agreement Based on Agreement Based on Agreement Main Field of Activities Chemistry, Applied Science and Life Sciences Various Fields Various Fields Various Fields Major Clients Corporations, Goverment and NGOs Automotive, chemical, consumer packaged goods, and food & beverage industries Large companies Small/medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) Universities Government labs Trade organizations Research institutes Individual innovators Large Corporations Large Corporation Large and Small Corporations Highly Technology Companies Growth Very High (80 %) High (20 %) High High High Roles Presents Challenge and Liaises with Seekers Liaison between seekers and potential expert solvers Rewards to Solvers Risk Solution fees and nonfinancial benefits May not get appropiate solutions Unknown Individuals Presents Challenge and Liaises with seekers and help our clients in the design and launch of successful OI programs Solution fees and nonfinancial benefits May not get appropriate solutions Unknown Individuals Who Solves Acquiring IP and accessing technology solutions; bringing buyers and sellers of technologies together Solution fees and nonSolution fees and financial benefits non-financial benefits May not get appropriate May not get solutions appropriate solutions Individuals mostly Solve through IP retired and senior Exchange between scientists buyers and sellers No Searching technologies for the seekers, Making solver teams Solution fees and non-financial benefits May not get appropriate solutions Team made of around 3 to 4 experts from the registered potential solvers Source Hossain (2012a) 4 Large Corporates disposing of non-core IP Hossain also looked at the Nokia Innovation Mill5 where Nokia made available ideas and patents not core to the company’s mission so that they could be exploited by Finnish SMEs and start-ups. “The Innovation Mill (IM) went through over 1000 ideas and around 100 of these ended up as part of the initiative. In the first year of the three-year initiative, fourteen new businesses were created. Within first 18 months of IM, over 4000 ideas have been screened; more than 100 ideas have found matching with entrepreneurs and companies, 27 ideas were submitted for further development, 29 new development projects initiated. Moreover, 450 companies have shown their interest of utilizing the idea database to develop new products and services. By the end of 2011, IM has generated 18 new companies and around 200 new jobs across Finland. Four million euros of financing has been granted to 36 projects. It shows how unused non-core ideas in a major corporation can, with proper support, be refined into worthwhile and interesting businesses.”6 A useful function for an EIIM could be to encourage other large European firms to unlock their non-core IP so that it is used to the benefit of all rather than the trapped value that exists presently. However, suitable ‘pick and mix’ template agreements such as the Lambert toolkit7 would be required for that to flourish. Innovation intermediaries Piller & Diener8 surveyed the global market for Open Innovation intermediaries (OIIs) Their study identified 180 such OIIs. They classify the OIIS into two broad categories as illustrated in Figure 1. The services provided by such intermediaries are important because: “Collaborating with intermediaries is an interesting option especially for small and medium sized enterprises. SMEs usually are limited in their capacity to scan the entire breadth of available knowledge and thus are restricted in filtering the relevant information.”9 5 Hossain, M. (2012b): Open Innovation Mill: Utilization of Nokia's non-core ideas. Procedia - Social and Behavioural Sciences, 58, 765-773. 6 Hossain, M. (2012b) 7 8 Lambert Toolkit (2014) UK Intellectual property office Piller, F. & Diener, K. (2013): The Market for Open Innovation: The 2013 RWTH Open Innovation Accelerator Survey. 9 Piller & Diener (2013) 5 Figure 1: Classification of intermediaries in the innovation process Source: Piller & Diener (2013) Piller and Diener go on to further classify intermediaries as follows: “for an organization planning to cooperate with a mediating agency, it is necessary to know its choice: Software-based intermediaries like all kind of information processing software programs (in comparison to human agents) can be easily picked and applied by an organization. They do not involve the constant coordination and contracting with another party. Their advantage is that they are able to embody complex functions. Software-based intermediaries scan, collect, and structure data into visual depictions (e.g. cross tabs, pivot tables, plots etc.). They do not require the user to learn the complex algorithms used in translation. They deal with explicit knowledge which is rational. Human intermediaries, on the contrary, transfer tacit knowledge by communicating and interacting with different parties. Regarding humanbased intermediaries, firms have to decide, based on their recent situation, the point of time for collaboration and the type of service the intermediary needs to provide. This dichotomy is a little simple in our view because it neglects human-moderated software intermediaries, of which there is a continuum of different levels of moderation. This type of mediator is further structured by three major characteristics – environmental characteristics (virtual vs. non-virtual), content specification of 6 traded knowledge (within vs. across industry), and type of funding (private vs. public).”10 Table 2 below shows this more granulated breakdown and highlights some gaps. Table 2: A more granulated breakdown of intermediary types Source: Piller & Diener (2013) Table 2: shows that there are gaps in publicly funded virtual intermediaries both within sectors and across sectors. An EIIM would potentially play a major role in filling those needs. Public innovation platforms The German Ministry of Economics and Energy commissioned Technopolis and Pumacy Technologies to examine the requirement for a platform to support open innovation for SMEs in Germany. In its report published in March 201611, the authors identified key success factors for the operation of a digital open innovation platform: 10 Simplicity – easy to identify and easy to use. Otherwise users will turn to Google. Continuous activity – if the content doesn’t change regularly and remain up to date users will stop using a platform Piller & Diener (2013) 11 Technopolis and Pumacy (2016) Ermittlung des Bedarfs an einer internetbasierten Open InnovationPlattform für KMU, freie Erfinder/innen, Universitäten und Forschungseinrichtungen 7 Critical user mass – in order to deliver significant benefits, the platform neds a large number of participants. Build-up of trust – if there is no trust then no information of value will be shared Handling of Intellectual Property Rights – Without clarity on IPR, there will be no engagement Professional advice and offline activities – these are necessary to build the community which will have the platform at its heart Geographical scope – the bigger the geography the more value the platform has if well implemented Persistence and sustainability – engagement with the platform involves effort and resource. This will be less likely if there is any doubt about its long term viability. Sufficient marketing – awareness raising of the platform and its additional benefits will be essential to reaching critical mass. This work also went on to make a number of recommendations of which the following are relevant to a potential EIIM12: Not to implement an isolated, proprietary OI value adding platform that is in direct competition with already existing private services; To examine if a meta platform integrating existing services, presenting OI projects of special relevance for Germany and guiding users through different OI-offerings can be implemented; To examine if there is the possibility to create an institutionalised exchange with private OI platform operators to steer and develop the market in an appropriate way in Germany; To examine, in how far, apart from the question whether to operate a platform or not, complementary actions can be taken to make Germany’s innovation players fit for the topic of OI processes (e.g. qualification of advisors, contact points; development of information materials, etc.); Crowdsourcing Crowdsourcing is the act of a company or institution taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to and undefined network of people in the form of an open call.13 It is a form of OI which has grown rapidly because the development of the Internet has made it relatively easy to reach large numbers of qualified people to help address a problem. 12 Technopolis and Pumacy (2016) 13 Definition from Jeff Howe – Wired Magazine 8 A more comprehensive definition of crowdsourcing was proposed by Enrique Estellés-Arolas and Fernando González-Ladrón-de-Guevara14. This defined a set of characteristics which indicate crowdsourcing: a. There is a clearly defined crowd b. There exists a task with a clear goal c. The recompense received by the crowd is clear d. The crowdsourcer is clearly identified e. The compensation to be received by the crowdsourcer is clearly defined f. It is an online assigned process of participative type g. It uses an open call of variable extent h. It uses the Internet Table 3 assesses how well some well used websites conform to crowdsourcing. Table 3: The extent to which some well-known platforms fulfil these definitions Source: Estellés-Arolas, Enrique; González-Ladrón-de-Guevara, Fernando (2012) Given the emerging importance of crowdsourcing, it will be important that the EIIM is capable of supporting it effectively and this should be borne in mind in the design process. 14 Estellés-Arolas, Enrique; González-Ladrón-de-Guevara, Fernando (2012), "Towards an Integrated Crowdsourcing Definition" (PDF), Journal of Information Science 38 (2): 189–200 9 3.2 Online survey The Digital Catapult designed and implemented a survey to help to assess the need for the EIIM and to give some guidance on the implementation. This survey was published widely and between March and May 2016 attracted 40 responses. The survey consisted of five broad sections: A brief gathering of information about the respondents Some questions designed to test the idea of an EIIM and the level of support it has from the respondents Some questions designed to give guidance on how an EIIM could be implemented Some questions specifically for people with their own existing platform. Assessment alternative policy options The survey enquiry was set in the context of a visual provocation (see Annex 3) so that a common vision of what EIIM might represent was viewed by respondents. Nature of the respondents 60% of responses were from business organisations, with 15% each from the public sector and non-profit organisations. 10% of responses were from individuals or organisations with a broad societal interest. When asked to describe the motivation for using the EIIM, 75% of respondents described their motive as financial with 20% saying societal. Assessment of potential benefits of EIIM When asked to consider the benefits that an EIIM might bring: 75% agreed that an EIIM would be beneficial for European productivity through innovation 75% thought it would bring additional value to European Society 60% thought it would add value over existing platforms When asked to rank the benefits that would materialise, the following benefits were cited in decreasing importance? Higher levels of commercialisation of publicly-funded R&D More instances of ideas being turned into reality Closer/new connections between users and designers Harnessing crowd-power in any form money/time/thought/experience A ranking of the business benefits that would materialise gave the following in decreasing order of importance (although the first two were ranked equally): 10 Increased visibility of ideas with commercialisation potential More transnational commercial partnerships Matching innovative businesses with potential investors Easier competitor analysis and due diligence A ranking of the business benefits that would materialise gave the following in decreasing order of importance: More rapid translation of ideas into products Citizen ideas and inventions reach a wider audience Transparency regarding public innovation policy and support Broader access to innovative ideas for European citizens Other potential benefits identified include: fewer bureaucratic systems are needed to bring collaborators together the EIIM will help with network formation the EIIM will help to identify new synergies between different sectors How would an EIIM be used? When designing the survey, we looked at the types of user, the types of persona (i.e. user roles) that are likely to engage with the EIIM and the motivations that drive that engagement. Table 4, Table 5 and Table 6 describe the main user types, personas and motivations respectively. Table 4: User types to engage with the EIIM Organisation Examples PUBLIC Government departments concerned with innovation policy Government departments concerned with productivity / economic development Government departments seeking innovative solutions to societal challenges Publicly funded national / regional innovation / IP agencies Local and regional authorities / enterprise organisations Research funding bodies (public money) Heath service trusts Government and entities wholly or substantially dependent on public funds BUSINESS All entities based on for-profit models Start-ups in technology or service innovation Micro SME with technology or service innovation focus SME with technology or service innovation focus SME in traditional established sector looking for innovation / diversification Investors Crowd funding platforms for commerce 11 NON-PROFIT Academic / RTO / charity SOCIETY Individuals / interest groups Universities and colleges Sectoral and general teaching and research institutes Sectoral and general research / technology centres Charitable research funding organisations Not for profit / social / community enterprises Crowd funding / sourcing for good Citizens with ideas but without ready access to structured innovation resources or systems Individuals and groups with common interests in problems or challenges Entrepreneurs seeking new commercial opportunities Social innovators building problem-solving movements / communities Table 5: Persona types to engage with the EIIM Persona Examples Advocate Seeking to promote ideas or innovation opportunities Enabler Capable of developing ideas and connecting resources (human, fiscal, crowd etc.) Browser Neither Advocate or Enabler but extracting other value from a European Ideas and Innovation Market Table 6: Primary motivations for engagement with the EIIM Motive Examples Financial Societal To make sure a good idea found a community to take it forward To raise money for an idea that you wouldn’t profit from In the hope that an idea for common good will gain traction Functional As a policymaker needing information As a journalist research a story As an academic looking for reference material To commercialise an idea To find projects to invest or assess competition To promote projects that need investment Something to sell or licence Table 7 shows the likely ‘hotspots’ of activity in red – those sectors, personas and motives which survey respondents ranked as being most likely uses for EIIM. 12 Table 7: An assessment of the primary motivations for the user personas when drawn from different types of user Persona Advocate Motive Fin Soc Enabler Func Fin Soc Browser Func Fin Soc Func Sector PUBLIC BUSINESS NONPROFIT SOCIETY In the public and business sectors the primary uses for the EIIM are for advocacy (seeking to promote ideas) and enablement (develop ideas). In addition, a particular need was identified in the business sector for Browsing with a strong financial motive. In contrast in the non-profit and broader society areas, as might be expected, the primary benefits are seen as societal although it is interesting to note that the financial motive was a very close second. The survey indicates that there are financial benefits for the business and public sector and strong societal benefits were flagged by the non-profit sector. Overall advocacy of an idea was seen as the primary use for the platform particularly in business, non-profit and society. For the public sector, browsing (developing ideas and connecting resources) was seen as important. In all sectors, there was a strong indication that an EIIM platform would be used more or at least as much as existing platforms. Users reported that the primary reason for using the platform would be to search for new opportunities and to promote opportunities. In particular, they highlighted that such a platform would open up trans-national opportunities which are not currently available as well as allowing access to social and non-profit ideas. A single point of search would be a particularly valuable feature. In terms of barriers to communication, the most significant obstacle is not in-fact language but vocabulary (sector specific specialist and technical terms). Conflict between commercial and non-commercial interests is also seen as an important barrier. 13 Those with their own platform For those with existing platforms, time and resource were naturally considered to be the most significant constraint when thinking about how to integrate with the wider EU platform. Interestingly, one of the other primary concerns was the potential reduction in visibility of their own platform and loss of traffic to it. There was strong support for a number of approaches by the respondents with the following gaining the most support: Open API promoted to owners of relevant data so they can integrate with the central market Construct the central platform and provide grant support for feeder sites to build and on-board custom integrations European funding to support nominated champion organisations in each Member State 75% of respondents thought that scale up and roll out need resources that don’t reside in their organisation. In terms of sustaining the platform, there was broad support to look at alternative mechanisms. The greatest support was for continued public funding. Alternatives such as commercial sponsorship and subscription fees or incentivising content data providers to support it from their own resources were also cited as worthy of investigation. Policy alternatives Finally, respondents were asked if there are policy solutions that could have the same value-add without building the platform. Some alternatives were identified and are listed in decreasing order of support although the general level of support for these was low: Legislative changes to provide greater protection to intangible assets Embedding requirements for transnational innovation searching in procurement legislation Sponsored events and conferences aimed at creating better networks Consumer regulation requiring user-centred design Best practice guides for idea and opportunity dissemination 3.3 Key findings from telephone interviews Introduction A series of telephone interviews were conducted with a number of organisations and individuals across Europe. These sought to explore: 14 The need for an EU Ideas and Innovation market (EIIM) How such a platform might fit with the existing ecosystem How such a platform could best be established and how over time it could become self-sustaining The main challenges and obstacles to the development of a platform and how they might be overcome All interviewees were made aware of the emergent nature of the Ideas and Innovation market and associated platform – thus they were not being asked to respond to a detailed and specific proposition with a clearly defined end-user market and associated set of services. Rather they were asked to respond to the broad concept of a single market to share ideas and innovation of any type. We have not attributed specific feedback to individuals but where possible we have reported back the words used by interviewees. A list of the organisations we spoke to can be found in Annex 1. Demand for a platform 80% of respondents expressed a strong interest in the concept of a European Ideas and Innovation market and felt there was value in developing it further. Among those who supported the concept, a number of specific aspects of the demand were identified: Existing commercial services are seen as out of reach of most SMEs because they are too expensive (although some commercial providers are now developing offerings specifically for SMEs). This is an important failing because many respondents saw SMEs as the ‘engine’ of innovation in contrast to the perception that corporate innovation can be incremental and slow in comparison. There is a perception that some existing organisations can be closed to incorporating ideas from outside of their ‘usual’ circles – in other words they have not embraced open innovation. There is desire in many cases to do something about this, but a lack of understanding of how to make it work – the EIIM was seen as a possible solution. A good example of this came from the 66 Fraunhofer Institutes, who explained that despite their specialisation which is necessary to push the borders in a specific field, there is an increasing formalisation of interaction between the different institutes and the sectors they represent. They felt that an EIIM could make a significant contribution to increasing cross-sectoral collaboration and cross-fertilisation of ideas across Europe. Most respondents felt that a ‘one-stop-shop’ would be useful – at the moment using existing search techniques, it is very hard to find all the communities in a particular domain which might be relevant. A platform which can connect all the dots and sort relevant ideas would be very useful. This point was made particularly by academic researchers who felt that when starting out in a new field (or a new cross-over field such as the 15 application of big data in elite sport), a platform which aggregated content could help them get an overview of current activity and ideas more quickly that other methods available to them. The smaller member states highlighted the importance for them of a panEuropean platform. In many cases the innovation community within a country may not be large enough or have the necessary expertise in certain areas. A platform which helped to overcome the natural inertia involved in sharing ideas and innovating outside of national boundaries would be valuable. As conditions attached to grant funding change in Europe, the research institutions increasingly need to create partnerships with the private sector to be able to demonstrate the impact of their work. They see this platform as a valuable showcase for their work – in particular as a means to have it seen by wide ranging potential partners in sectors they may not normally consider collaborating with. The value of being seen outside country borders was also seen as valuable in this respect. Some respondents felt the market should not be limited to Europe only – indeed a number suggested that an important measure of success should be the degree to which it is used by people outside of the EU. Cross-sectoral innovation was seen as important. Bringing in those who might not currently regard themselves as part of a specific innovation community (e.g. Health Ageing or Smart Cities) A number of current providers of online idea sharing and innovation portals would welcome the potential for wider dissemination of their own content and enabling their own communities to work with others. Concerns were also raised – many of these were around whether the concept could be successfully implemented which we discuss in more detail below, but a number related to the concept itself: The most significant was that a platform such as this is in danger of trying to be all things to all people and in doing that would never become a ‘killer application’ for anyone. The breadth which is at the heart of the concept was seen as both a strength and a weakness. One difficulty is that the processes used by other ideas and innovation platforms are many and varied – some seek ideas to address a specific challenge, sometimes targeting a specific set of experts, other times crowdsourcing from a community or more widely. Other platforms offer a database of ideas and innovations in different domains and their owners for user to search. Others place time constraints in the idea sharing, running online facilitated events for example. The perception of our respondents is that trying to bring these together in a coherent manner will be extremely difficult. Others expressed the view that the most innovative companies and individuals would not use a broad based platform such as this and it would thus become a place for ‘the mediocre’ or a place where only those who ‘had 16 failed when trying other platforms resided’. One respondent said “The EIIM idea is unlikely to be useful. That is because patent searches are now international and non-patent ideas are of marginal benefit because you cannot get exclusivity”. Commercial platform providers raised a number of concerns: o o Some have themselves identified the potential for a ‘platform of platforms’ – these organisations were interested in being advisors on the EC initiative and potential suppliers to it. Many of them have built substantial global networks and databases. They were concerned that new entrants could use the EIIM to set up new services in competition with them. The existence of EIIM could increase the extent to which governments investing in public research and innovation don’t get sufficient return on investment because the idea is even more widely disseminated and rights are not retained. Whilst ready access to new ideas and innovations was welcomed, some felt that EIIM could allow rapid competition audits by abusive players leading to an increase in (threats of) litigation associated with competing IP, thus increasing market-related market failures. On reflection from the interviews, we have identified a number of significant ‘friction points’ commonly present to varying degrees in ideas and innovation partnership discovery and development shown in Table 8. 17 Table 8: Friction points in the efficient sharing of ideas and innovations Friction point Example from interviews Discovery A number of respondents, particularly academics reported that when exploring a new field, it is particularly difficult to gain a reliable overview of the current thinking, ideas and innovations in the field. A ‘one-stop-shop’ would be very valuable. Equally innovation pointed out that smaller companies do not have the resources to conduct global idea searches to support their innovations. Disclosure There are often concerns that relate to disclosure and these concerns range from very formal restrictions around IP that is intended to be patented to informal concerns about commercial advantage and how much to reveal. Interpretation Use of different language, vocabulary and terminology can mean that searches don’t yield the connections or content sought leading to potential partners missing opportunities. Trust Innovating parties reported that sometimes they are reluctant to work outside their regular circles of trust meaning that they don’t seek opportunities more widely. Valuation Different parties attach different values at various points in their stage of development, depending on motivation and objectives. There were examples of patients potentially underestimating the potential value of their own ideas, leading to possible exploitation by more commercially astute actors. Open vs. Closed Motivations behind idea generation and development through innovation differ between parties primarily around the social vs. commercial tension. Legislation and policy There are still notable exceptions in harmonisation. The Digital Single Market for example seeks to address some of these issues in digital content markets. Assessment of market failure These friction points can also be contextualised in terms of classic market failures. We’ve classified them according to whether the failure is market related, exchange related or goods related or a combination in Table 9 below. The section following the table gives definitions and examples. 18 Table 9: Relating observed friction points to classic market failures Friction point Primary area of market failure Discovery Market-related Disclosure Exchange-related Interpretation Market, goods and exchange-related Trust Exchange and goods-related Valuation Exchange and goods-related Open vs. Closed Goods-related Legislation and policy Market-related Our definitions of market failure, together with examples, are shown below: Market-related: This might include monopolies, unequal/abusive leverage (e.g. deep resources to resort to law vs no resources). For example, interview respondents pointed to the difficulties faced by SMEs, particularly in smaller member states in accessing a wide range of ideas to address a particular problem. In comparison, larger companies could afford to pay to ‘cast the net’ much more widely using commercial search services. Exchange-related: Information asymmetry (e.g. one party has better knowledge of the efficacy/potential than the other). This was borne out in examples where patients offer their own innovations for use by others. There is clear asymmetry in the knowledge that the patient can have of the potential for their innovation vs a large company which is in the medical device business (for example). Goods-related: The level of protectability of ideas associated with public and or common goods can mitigate against investors in the broadest sense (e.g. because the upside will only come from exclusivity). In our interviews we identified users with widely different motivations for using a platform – from generating social good (and by implication no profit for themselves) to generating a protectable idea with profit potential. It is interesting to note that respondents did not explicitly focus on these failures as a reason for supporting the EIIM. Instead, it has become clear from the interviews that significant productivity benefits could arise from the use of this platform. Furthermore, current policy thinking in innovation systems15 shows that, in itself, market failure is insufficient justification for policy intervention and there is a need 15 Bleda, Del Roi (2013) The market failure and the systemic failure rationales in technological innovation systems Research Policy Volume 42, Issue 5, June 2013, Pages 1039–1052 19 to provide complimentary arguments from system failure (which fits more closely to the notion of productivity enhancement). The UK Office of National Statistics Productivity Handbook16 describes five key drivers for productivity. Table 10 demonstrates how EIIM will impact positively on productivity across all five of these drivers and how its benefits will not be isolated to innovation. Annex 4 gives more detail on the background to the five drivers described in Table 10. Table 10: Making a productivity impact case for EIIM Innovation Competition Enterprise Investment Skills Visibility of opportunity enhanced Open to all with enhanced diversity potential Puts ideas directly into the citizen domain Blends IP registries will intangible opportunities Increases serendipity potential Reduces wastage around duplication Promotes equality of opportunity to exploit new ideas Shows clear market gaps for new products Pipeline of new opportunities for start ups Improves knowledge of competitors Matches potential partners Demand side data indicates gaps in the market Enterprise pipeline provides investment deal flow Improves due diligence around competing ideas Helps map investment hotspots to attract new capital Greater visibility of innovation process enhances the experience of innovators Acts as inspiration to potential innovators Individual projects provide realworld learning This initial analysis shows how considerable productivity advantages can be derived from the EIIM. However, this is not an impact study and the European Commission may wish to explore this further with a rigorous economic analysis using appropriate productivity assessment tools. Making the EIIM a success Nearly all of the interviewees offered views on how to make the market concept a success. The key findings were: 16 UK Office for National Statistics (2106) Productivity Handbook 20 The platform should not attempt to replace what is already there with a new platform, rather it should focus on enabling access to the many existing platforms and forums which already exist. These platforms have many users - it was felt that creating an ‘additional’ platform would undoubtedly lead to a struggle to attract new users. In the words of one interviewee, “Building a monolithic system to re-create what already exists would be a very bad idea. The platform should aim to be a ‘network of networks’ harnessing what already exists and amplifying its effectiveness”. The platform cannot stand alone – it needs to be part of a larger ecosystem/community for innovation which brings together people with different backgrounds and perspectives. Respondents explained that by themselves, virtual platforms such as this won’t succeed; dynamic communities need to be created and maintained and regular face to face contact needs to be a core part of the functioning of the market. Building on this point is the notion of additional value add. Many existing platforms offer a wide range of services to their users designed to ensure that people are attracted to using them in the first place and continue to use them. Examples include: o o o o o Expert review and curation of content. A specific example from our interviewees is medically trained staff reviewing content posted by patients to other patients, or provision of overarching roadmaps to help place new technologies in context Real time online facilitation or moderation of discussions to encourage greater understanding and appreciation of different viewpoints Provision of services such as providing advice on contracts, managing intellectual property management, commercialising new innovations Opportunities for face to face interaction and promotion such as conferences, workshops, awards ceremonies, pitching events, showcases and mentoring. Digital extension – a number of respondents commented that web access alone is insufficient and that there needs to be social media presence to widen the opportunity for debate and sharing and mobile apps to improve the ease of access to challenges and ideas posted on the web platform. One respondent suggested that the platform needs to find ways to reach certain categories of firms and individuals that are not normally reached because they are not participants in existing networks and don’t have time to go to existing meetings and fora. The suggestion from this organisation was that the way in which the platform frames challenges (assuming a challenge led approach is adopted) would be critical to attracting this wide audience. 21 There was a concern that presenting all users with the same front end portal would be a mistake – the volume of irrelevant information for most users would limit interest and take-up. Thus a way of sign-posting users to content which is most relevant to their interests needs to be found. As one respondent said, “It’s important not to be too generic; framing, naming and entry point is critical” It is important to involve a wide group of potential users and beneficiaries in the detailed development of the platform. The existing platforms which are successful have often needed to change their design and approach many times to find a suitable model. The ability to evolve the design in response to user feedback after launch is important. There was a widespread view that English was the best language for the market – indeed no concerns on communication/language emerged in our interviews. It is interesting to note that many of our requests for interview were done in the local language but in all cases, interviewees preferred to be interviewed in English. One organisation in Portugal had chosen to build their innovation platform and community in English, stating that this optimised its chances as a global platform. Of greater concern was the use of technical and domain-specific language. We asked what ways can best be used to overcome these perennial difficulties, respondents suggested that clear writing, summaries for non-expert audiences, the use of glossaries, and offering staff who were adept across a wide number of fields to help translate and explain concepts was important. Users will quickly stop using a platform if information is not current and not refreshed frequently. It mustn’t be allowed to become a ‘stale brochure’. The strong feedback is that the platform should not be involved at all in any potential transactions between parties – i.e. it is there to enable discovery, awareness, promotion and early development of ideas. In the words of one respondent, “technology such as that coming from the EU research programmes is generally not market ready. Therefore, in order to use it, there has to be an engagement process which involves identification of the technology and engagement between the owner and potential user to understand what is on offer and then there can be a licence if both parties agree that the technology is what is needed. The EIIM would be good for the first part of this process but the rest has to be done off platform”. Several respondents made the point that sticking to a signposting role avoids many of the legal, regulatory, confidentiality and security issues that would arise if the EIIM delivered a platform for transactions. The EIIM will need significant effort to promote it from launch. It will need a charismatic team to go out and sell cooperation to the existing players and platforms and to engage potential investors. It will need extensive promotion to potential users. If this is not done, then the platform will never not gain a critical mass of users. One respondent said “it is important to attract high profile users to the platform early on, such as a leading 22 investment company or well-regarded university. This will encourage others to come on board”. Potential barriers Whilst interviewees welcomed the initiative taken by the EC in doing this work, they felt that it was important that previous lessons are learned to make it a success. There was a perceived failure of previous online initiatives (the Cordis database was mentioned a number of times). In one respondent’s words, “The EC has a long track record of compiling information and putting it on websites which are out of date when they are launched. This initiative is in grave danger of doing the same”. Exploration of the learning from previous initiatives is outside of the scope of this work, but we would reference the factors for success above which we have used to design our proposed pilot plan in section. The other barriers identified tend to centre around the degree to which the ideas and information or advice found through the platform can be trusted and the degree to which they can be protected: Providers of a patient innovation platform described how, despite their initial intentions, medically trained staff now filter out ideas from patients which could present a safety issue if adopted by other patients. Thus any suggestions for substances (drugs or foodstuffs) which may be taken internally or applied topically are excluded. Furthermore, the terms of use of the platform explain that ideas are not validated and the platform provider does not take responsibility for their use. One organisation collates and publishes links to datasets generated through research. There is a need in this case to give a disclaimer regarding the accuracy and potential uses of the data. One issue reported with a citizen led platforms involves the issue of ‘oversharing’ – not just of an idea but of personal information which could lead to individuals being exploited by others. In this case, the responsibility of the platform provider to prevent this happening was unclear. Those platform providers who offer more than a basic exchange of ideas by for example, providing ready-made templates for IP licensing or confidentiality agreements note that in doing this the responsibility of the platform provider potentially increases. Confidentiality is an issue which existing platform providers report finding difficult to address. One provider asks that anyone sharing an idea they think may be patentable does not post it on the platform but shares it under confidentiality agreement with their staff to review. All agree that absolute clarity over rules of engagement for IP is essential. 23 Functionality Some of the interviews delved into possible functionality of the platform and ways in which it could be developed. Although not part of our questioning, it is useful to share those ideas: The use of artificial intelligence and semantic search was often mentioned. Some commercial companies are now using this broaden their searches for expertise into areas not directly related to the challenge area (applying medical expertise into the agritech sector for instance). The ability to ‘route’ someone with a problem to experts who are most likely to be able to help with them is an important requirement. To ensure that the platform is active and material is constantly refreshed, the use of a simple API linking to source platforms via which information was fed into the market was put forward. This approach would allow external bodies to control what information they share with the market. It is important that any content can be withdrawn by its originator for instance to allow space for relationships to develop when a match happens – this could be done by the owner through an API. To address the concerns raised that the platform shouldn’t try to be all things to all people, a number of suggestions emerged, including o Sophisticated profile matching for registrants o The ability to subscribe to thematic ideas feeds o o Tagging opportunities according to the stage of development (blue sky through to prototype) Rolling out the platform, one challenge at a time. The suggestion was to use a big societal grand challenge as a means of generating the maximum impact and attracting a wide range of users. The possible impact from the growing application of distributed ledger technology was a feature of a few of the responses received, although it was outside of the scope of the present work. At the time of writing there’s a significant spectrum of opinion ranging from extreme scepticism to high optimism about the extent to which blockchain technology will change the internet. Clearly, the potential of distributed ledger solutions to address some of the challenges inherent in EIIM design shouldn’t be ignored. For example, the potential for distributed ledgers to provide immutable proof of idea disclosure as a new way of establishing priority dates has yet to be fully explored. Likewise, the concept of so-called ‘smart contracts’ evidenced through a distributed ledger could provide solutions for project teams to form around an idea or concept, defining the manner in which they plan to develop the idea further. Such contracts may be helpful where participants, such as those introduced for the first time through EIIM, need to work 24 outside their normal circles of trust (see Section 3.3) to move a concept forwards. Sustainability All respondents agreed that the development of the market and platform would require initial seed funding to develop a proof of concept. Most respondents suggested this should come from the EC with a few suggesting that national innovation agencies should be asked to collaborate in providing this in the first instance. A number of different models emerged for how to make the market sustainable in the medium to long term: National research agencies are asked to fund or simply pay from their existing research budgets As tapered funding from EC or national innovation agencies falls away it is replaced by commercial services for users. One respondent suggested for instance that a small entrepreneurial organisation takes responsibility for full implementation of the platform and seeks to exploit it by offering associated services such as conferences, consultancy, implementation assistance etc. Other ideas included investors paying a fee to get early access to new innovations through the platform. A royalty sharing scheme could be employed whereby exploitation of ideas brought together through the platform could take a share of the resulting business. An example is MRC Technology17, an independent life science medical research charity established by the UK Medical Research Council in 2000 which helps innovative companies to bridge the gap between basic research and commercial application. It offers wide ranging support including labs for new companies to use in exchange for royalties on whatever is developed. Interesting models are emerging in the sharing economy. The We Share Festival, a pan-global network of innovators motivated to create a sharing economy work on the principal that you have to give back to the community in proportion as you take from it. Other collectives channel a percentage of members’ earnings into the support of core services to the community 3.4 Learning from the Open Permission Platform (OPP) The Open Permission Platform18 is a ‘hub of hubs’ which gives simplified access to a wide range of digital assets through existing, small and fragmented rights management hubs. It enables individuals, SMEs and organisations who generate 17 http://www.mrctechnology.org 18 https://www.digitalcatapultcentre.org.uk/project/open-permissions-platform/ 25 digital content to make it more visible to potential licensees and help maximise its usage and their licence income (if that is their motivation), and those who wish to use digital content in a wide variety of contexts to correctly find, identify and then gain legal permissions to use that content. It emerged from work initiated in the UK in 2010 by Innovate UK (formerly the Technology Strategy Board) to develop a testbed or ‘Copyright Hub’ designed to ‘facilitate within a common framework, direct exchanges between individual rights users and rights holders in relation to the licensing of copyright works’. In developing the OPP, the challenges in providing access to a diverse set of content repositories operated by many different organisations without a common operating system are very similar to those associated with providing access to the many different idea and innovation data repositories across Europe. Table 11 shows how the OPP has addressed many of the potential requirements for the EIIM platform concept. Table 11: Matching needs of EIIM to experience from OPP Potential requirement for EIIM Relevance of OPP experience A seamless way for users and creators (of ideas) to interact The OPP uses machine to machine interactions to enable a direct and frictionless interface between human users and creators. The platform should support a wide variety of actors The OPP is agnostic in approach to a wide variety of actors (including corporate, SME, start-up, citizen and research) with widely differing business models and motivations The overall utility of the platform should increase as different actors are brought on board The OPP is a distributed 'hub' system allowing discreet and individual and organisational usage that has a centralised core that allows all players to gain advantage of scale as more of them make use of it The platform should support any scale of interaction in any territory The OPP is a web scale platform, able to deal with any scale of interaction across any number of different territories The platform will need to work with a wide variety of other platforms The OPP uses an open source and API technical approach to encourage wider take up and ensure the flexibility to integrate with the varying and different technical back end systems It is system agnostic of licensing regimes and frameworks, letting everyone in equally, which will be an important factor in pooling ideas, organisations and business models across the EU Users will need to be convinced to join and then use the platform The OPP is an ongoing exercise in convincing organisations of the value of a centralised, yet distributed system. Becoming a participant boosts the 26 overall ‘ecosystem’ as well as their own activities, driving wider cross-EU collaboration, greater exposure to ideas for all and a wider distribution of requests for partners, research, etc. Existing platforms will need to do some development activity to become part of the market Rolling out OPP has provided direct experience of the challenges in working with partners to persuade them to change road maps and devote resource to a third part system. A number of key learnings emerged from this work which have been taken into account in developing the service roll out plan in section 5.2. A number of factors are important to ensuring rapid adoption: o o o o a very clear statement of the value of the platform (this is something that needs to be derived from the detailed use cases) a number of ‘champion’ users such as leading research institutes or well-regarded venture capitalists who start using the platform early on and are encouraged to tell others about it. This finding came out in a number of the interviews as well. payment for early adopters to do the necessary development to integrate their own platforms into OPP. a simple interface to the system with design firmly centred on a detailed understanding of user’s interaction with the platform. It is important that the platform of platforms does not rely too strongly on start-up companies as early adopters. By necessity, their priorities will often change often and thus it is difficult to gain their long term commitment to integration. Because there is a need for technical development to integrate with OPP, those companies chosen as early adopters need to have a reasonable degree of technical expertise. These ‘tech-savvy’ users need to be capable of building their own solutions on top of the base platform. Even when payment is offered to support the integration, this technical knowledge is important – otherwise a considerable degree of individual hands-on support will be needed. 3.5 Conclusions There is considerable support for the Commission to undertake an initiative to develop an ideas and innovation market. Expressions in favour ran at more than 75% in both the survey and the telephone interviews. It was broadly felt that such an approach was the most likely to be productive to stimulate innovation and other public policy initiatives were only being referenced in terms of the seed funding for the development of EIIM. 27 The interviews did garner support for the idea that the existing situation propagates market failures. There was recognition that there are systemic failures at many levels of idea sharing and in innovation such as information asymmetry and networking failures that impede the diffusion of information. However, this was not a rigorous market examination so the full position with respect to market failure is unclear. Having looked at the issues over the course of our research our view has moved in the direction that market failure is perhaps outdated as a means of considering ideas and innovation sharing. Although not directly a finding from the interviews, our thinking is that systems thinking is more appropriate. The logical extension of making the sharing of ideas and innovation more efficient is that productivity will be enhanced, using the five key drivers in Table 10. There is a strong case for public intervention in terms of making the system more efficient. There was a very clear consensus from the telephone interviews supporting a platform-of-platforms approach to the development of the EIIM. This is because significant investment has already been undertaken in existing platforms and this investment should be built upon. Furthermore, each existing platform has a valuable ecosystem which has taken time to build. An approach whereby the EIIM attempted to replace all of these existing platforms would destroy the value of the investments already made, undermine the existing communities which have taken years to build and would probably end up damaging rather than enhancing the free flow of ideas around Europe. Existing platforms come in a wide variety of different forms and it is likely that more platforms will emerge over time. Therefore, the EIIM needs to be interoperable with all types of platform. This implies that an API-enabled distributed system allowing all players to fully and equally interact is the most appropriate approach to its implementation. Such an approach will ensure that the content owners are in charge of what the EIIM sees, making it much more likely that the content will be kept up to date. It also allows owners the ability to take content down if in negotiation for exclusive access with a third party. Evidence from the telephone interviews and from the Digital Catapult’s own experience developing the Open Permissions Platform (OPP) is that third parties often do not have the internal technical capabilities or the time to effectively engage externally to share their information even if they perceive a real benefit from so doing. Managing the potential barriers to the development of the EIIM is important for its success. There are a variety of issues to be taken into consideration such as legal and regulatory barriers. Through our research we did not identify any potential legal and regulatory barriers to the EIIM per se. However, very careful consideration will need to be given to the drafting of agreements between the EIIM and partner platforms to ensure that the rights and responsibilities of both parties are clearly defined. As with any significant data handling project, the appropriate 28 information management processes covering privacy and confidentiality need to be incorporated into the design in a professional manner. A phased approach to development as recommended by many of the interviewees also offers an approach to minimising risks and barriers. The move to actual trading could be possible in limited circumstances. Here, carefully defined types of trading can be supported but, again, the rights and responsibilities of both parties will need to be tightly defined. Where the limited circumstances for trading are not met, then the platform should provide the contact information necessary for off-platform dialogue. 3.6 Recommendations There is good evidence that the European Commission could consider proceeding with the next phase of development of the EIIM concept. An API-enabled approach should be core to the platform implementation. The third party platforms need to be resourced to become part of the market in addition to the expenditure at the centre. This will need to cover the full costs initially but may be tapered over time as the benefits of participation become more evident. A tapered approach also creates an incentive to be an early adopter. The design of the platform should be user-centric so that different types of users are guided in a way that keeps them engaged and delivers to them what they need. We have developed a phased high-level implementation plan for the EIIM. An investment between €3.1 to €4.0 million would be needed to bring the EIIM into existence and develop it to critical mass. The approach should future proofed against further technological development by being intrinsically scalable and adaptable. Furthermore, consideration should be given to the use of distributed ledger technology and so called smart contracts which are emerging and would seem to have a natural application to the issues that EIIM is planning to address. Making the platform commercially self-sustaining will be challenging. We have there suggested a two-year development and evaluation of different potential options for full commercialisation. For the level of investment suggested, it is likely that some further evaluation work needs to be done before implementation to demonstrate the value add and return on investment of the platform through productivity gains (and this should be set in the context of competition, enterprise, investment and skills as well as innovation). In addition, professional legal opinion may need to be taken on any potential legal and regulatory barriers 29 which may only be possible to consider once the full design has been agreed. 30 4 VISUAL SCHEME Figure 2 shows the current state with separate repositories of ideas/innovations and how the EIIM would bring them together through the use of an API which links into each one. Through this approach, a user can gain access to all of the ideas/innovations which are contained in the individual repositories. Advocates and Enablers would be able to post their ideas/wants either via their existing local connections or the central EIIM. Local content repository platforms can elect to display/filter certain types of relevant opportunity originating from the central platform. Figure 2: Visual representation of before and after case Table 12 shows the ways in which the different personas might interact with the EIIM. 31 Table 12: Persona interaction with EIIM Advocate interaction Enabler interaction Browser interaction Posts ideas/innovations and specifies needs/wants around it Posts areas of interest and specifies needs/wants around them Interacts with all information and parties on a discretionary basis according to need Supplements postings with social media outreach Supplements postings with social media outreach Possibly follows links from social media information to arrive at EIIM Reviews existing Advocate propositions to seek any alignment or complementarity Reviews existing and future Enabler propositions to seek alignment or complementarity Requires deeper registration in order to interact fully with Advocates or Enablers Reviews existing Enabler propositions to assess fit Reviews existing and future Advocate propositions to seek alignment or complementarity Possible functionality to allow survey postings / thematic enquiries to support policy development by certain authorities such as Member State governments Reviews Enabler responses to assess fit Contacts Advocates or Enablers via the platform on a discretionary basis Browsers prevented or restricted from harvesting information for commercial gain (from the harvested information) Contacts Advocates or Enablers via the platform on a discretionary basis Responds to Advocate, Enabler and Browser queries on a discretionary basis Enters into further dialogue with Advocates / Enablers where there is potential fit Enters into further dialogue with Advocates / Enablers where there is a potential fit Contracts with suitable parties where appropriate Contracts with suitable parties where appropriate Responds to Browser queries on a discretionary basis For definitions of Personas see Table 5. 4.1 Application programming interface The key to making the platform a reality is the API. Its design features allow integration with different platform types and information sources. Its core functionality enables two-way transmission of user registrations (with attendant data protection management), opportunity posting, response communications and (where partnerships form as a result of EUI&IM-facilitated introductions) on-going transaction engagement. The API approach is also an ideal mechanism to integrate 32 existing and future open data sets, allowing the EIIM to benefit from the trend towards open data. We have allowed 9 months for its development in the service roll out below. It would be fully open-source, with opportunities to engage being promoted to the development community and incentivised during initial phases. 4.2 EIIM portal The portal would represent a single landing point for all users. A mock-up of how this might look, based on the provocation distributed with the survey is provided in Annex 3. An image of what landing page could look like is shown in Figure 3 below. This will be designed in detail as part of platform build. Figure 3: Illustration of potential EIIM landing page 33 4.3 Overlaying Distributed Ledger19 functionality on the visual scheme An additional feature for idea/innovation posting could be the registration of a record akin to a priority date on a fully transparent distributed ledger. The purpose of this would be to build confidence and trust around idea sharing to ensure that creator-attribution is not lost. The trust/risk taking would be helped by the fact that the posting date would be recorded immutably external to the EIIM, thus allowing an audit trail. An additional feature for partnership formation around an idea could be automated/templated ‘smart’ contracting functionality with significant contract elements recorded immutably on a fully transparent distributed ledger. The purpose of this would be to allow partnerships to come together quickly without formal entity-to-entity contracting, for example to allow a pilot in a particular area. This is shown in figure 4. These areas are developing continually and any extended discussion here would date rapidly. In addition to the UK Government paper cited in the footnote the recent book by Don and Alex Tapscott – Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin is Changing Money, Business and the World20 provides a number of interesting discussions around the underlying technology and the concept of smart contracts. 19 For a useful glossary regarding distributed ledger technology see https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/492972/gs-16-1-distributed-ledger-technology.pdf 20 Published May 2016 by Penguin ISBN 1101980133 34 Figure 4: Schematic of possible Distributed Ledger functionality 35 5 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE EIIM 5.1 Development plan The following primary requirements underpin our proposed development plan shown in Table 13 for EIIM: Maximising the value of existing investments in sector/territory-specific innovation platforms and harnessing the stakeholder networks associated with them. Maximising the interaction between different types of actors set in the context of the organisations, personas and motivations identified. Providing potential for integration with existing and future data sources that aren’t presently showcased via platforms (such as patent databases). Adaptability in terms of the ability to respond to demand for additional features in future versions. Scalability in terms of the potential for impact from an initial pilot through to sufficiency of bandwidth for a central platform operation with multiple connections via an API. Overlay the possible potential arising from distributed ledger technology and business practice developments. The notional budget described in Table 13 is based on the experience of the Digital Catapult in implementing the OPP. Although different in purpose, we believe that the OPP and the EIIM are similar in terms of scale and investment required. 36 Table 13: Development plan for EIIM Phase Action plan Notional budget Evaluation (3 months) 1. Possible productivity value add analysis (see notes below) €250,000 2. Run open briefing event to present and discuss findings. (warming up) 3. Gateway decision to proceed Build (9 months) Announce open call for platform design provider €1.5 – 2.25 million for build. PLATFORM DESIGN Additional 20% for moderation and operation User requirements capture Prototype design and testing Preparatory development of standards, concepts and API Platform build Pilot (6 months) Announce Open Call for initial test use cases €550,000 in total: A small number of key early adopters (c. 5) €300,000 to run platform during pilot Development of initial commercial models Continuing development work from learnings Evaluation report Scale Up (over a period of 18 months) Increasing API adopters from 5 to 25 Critical Mass (by end of scale up phase) Build from 25 to 50 adopters Commercial operation Auto licensing, distributed ledger, payment systems Run regular user group meetings Test different commercial models Continuing development work from learnings €50,000 for each early adopter €500,000 (plus commercial income dependent on transaction volume). Indirect incentives (tax breaks, access to innovation finance etc.) to stimulate idea and IP registration on the nodes connected via the API Ongoing operational costs Continuing development work from learnings Gateway decision on how to proceed commercially Transaction levy contributes to commercial operation (to be determined) Although this outline development plan has been designed to allow the European Commission flexibility at each different phase should the Commission go forward with the concept development, there will still be significant investment exposure. Go/no-go decisions are possible after the productivity evaluation and the pilot, 37 though the latter after considerable investment. However, the API approach proposed does allow scalability once the pilot is finished and wouldn’t be at the expense of the existing platforms who would remain in an enhanced form whether or not EIIM was taken to full conclusion. There will be risks and challenges if the scale up fails to reach critical mass – and also if suitable funding mechanisms aren’t viable at that point. There are also risks around Data Protection and legal/policy variations between Member States. Finally, the possible inclusion of Distributed Ledger technology represents a significant unknown at the time of writing this report. Figure 5 illustrates the potential development of the platform assuming that it progresses through all the stages envisaged. Figure 5: Illustration of the EIIM development If the platform becomes self-sustaining then the Commission can bow out and allow the platform to operate on a stand-alone basis. If it fails during or after the pilot, then this will most likely be due to insufficient marketing and awareness rather than functionality which will have been optimised during the build phase. In this situation we feel that a number of the existing commercial providers would be interested in taking on the marketing and running of the platform. 5.2 Risk analysis and possible mitigation We assessed the risks facing the European Commission in case it would proceed with implementing the EIIM and considered how these risks could be mitigated. 38 When analysing the risks grouped the potential problems into four categories: strategic, operational, technical and financial. Table 14 describes the risks identified and their mitigation. Table 14: risks and mitigations Risk category Risk Possible mitigation Strategic Significant numbers of ideas are exploited outside the EU This is an inbuilt feature of the open innovation approach being embraced in the EIIM. The best mitigation is extensive promotion of the platform in Europe to maximise the exploitation here. Strategic The platform becomes a tool for ‘Patent Trolls’ When designing the platforms and advice for users, this danger should be kept in mind and advice given to users to minimise their exposure to Patent Trolls. Strategic Existing commercial players already considering a platform enter the market in competition with the EIIM Seek to integrate commercial players so that they cooperate with the platform rather than compete. Operational Failure to garner sufficient applications for pilot During evaluation phase, run open briefing event to present and discuss findings. (warming up). Important to exploit existing networks as a means to raise interest, including for example the European Enterprise Network, in country knowledge transfer networks and national innovation agencies. Operational Pilot completed but scale up fails due to lack of incentivisation Identify a number of ‘champion’ users such as leading research institutes or wellregarded venture capitalists who start using the platform early on and are encouraged to tell others about it. Evangelise the benefits of participation Continue develop work if needed to accurately meet new user’s requirements. 39 Operational EIIM fails to secure sufficient flow of ideas and innovation Financial incentives for first five adopters with tapered funding to follow. Evangelise the benefits of participation and identify early case studies to illustrate those benefits. Build a community of existing innovation agencies, knowledge networks etc. who will promote the platform to their own communities. Technical Different technology variations across platforms too complex for viable API development Use an open source and API technical approach to encourage wider take up and ensure the flexibility to integrate with the varying and different technical back end systems. Technical The platform is so intensively used that it is overwhelmed The platform should be designed to scale rapidly with extra capacity available form cloud suppliers should demand increase rapidly. Financial/Legal Associated commercial models prove difficult to establish Seek member state public funding if this situation seems likely to materialise. Financial/Legal Inconsistencies in local legislation (such as Data Protection) make EIIM impossible to achieve Professional legal opinion should be taken on any potential legal and regulatory barriers during early stages of build phase and these barriers need to be taken into account during the design process. 5.3 Proposed productivity value add analysis This report proposes that a study could be undertaken to try and quantify the positive productivity impact of EIIM before undertaking the proposed pilot. However, the European Commission may also wish to consider: Is there a sufficient case for embarking on the pilot without the study? Could the study be run in parallel with the pilot to facilitate end-to-end data capture and impact measurement? Can the study provide sufficient information for a return on investment calculation at an aggregated European level given that productivity impacts will initially occur at a Member State level? How might wider spill over impacts be captured (for example impact occurs in one industry initially and spills over to other sectors later)? 40 Our view is that this would take three months and would cost around €225k. There would be a tender process to select an appropriate consultancy or institution to conduct the analysis. This estimate is based on our work with economic consultancies who have assessed the gross value add of public sector interventions. 41 ANNEX 1 - ORGANISATIONS INTERVIEWED Organisation Description Country European Association of Research and Technology Organisations Non-profit international association whose members are the individual national research and technology organisations Europe VTT Technical Research Centre Of Finland National research organisation Finland Knowledge Transfer Network Organisation established to foster better collaboration between science, creativity and business funded by Innovate UK UK 5G Innovation Centre Innovation Gateway A joint project between the Digital Catapult and Surrey University 5G Innovation Centre UK Fraunhofer Institute Europe’s largest application oriented research organisation Germany Centre for Science and Policy University of Cambridge initiative to improve links between academics and policy makers UK Institute for Manufacturing, Cambridge University Part of the University of Cambridge, the IfM brings together expertise in management, technology and policy to address the full spectrum of issues which can help industry and governments create sustainable economic growth. UK Enterprise Europe Network An organisation that connects innovators with manufacturers, distributors, co-developers and suppliers overseas Europe European Commission We spoke with people from DG Connect, Joint Research Centre and Innovation Unit Europe Centre for Business Research, Cambridge University An interdisciplinary, evidence-based unit funded by research grants UK RCUK Partnership for Conflict, Crime and Security Research (PaCCS) Research Councils UK initiative which aims to deliver high quality and cutting edge research to help improve our understanding of current and future global security challenges. UK Innoget An open innovation marketplace for selling and buying technologies and knowledge about life science, chemistry, engineering, computer science. Spain Patient Innovation An open platform for patients and caregivers of any disease and geography to share solutions they developed to help them cope with the challenges imposed by their disease or health condition. Portugal Forum for the Future Citizen innovation portals and movements UK Interface University enquiry portals for organisations looking for researchers and specific technology UK Hypios Commercial crowd innovation company France German Institute for Ideas and Innovation Management Focuses on working with ideas and innovation management leaders across industry sectors, and acts as a channel and forum for thought leadership Germany GeoCaB (Earth Observation Capacity Building Portal) EU-funded project designed to increase and improve the use of earth observation techniques for environmental management and policy making Europe Vinnova Governmental agency for innovation systems Sweden NWO National research organisation Netherlands Digile Non-profit owned by over 40 companies, universities and public entities coordinating business-led research programs, speeding up the development of digital services, creating business ecosystems and opening up international markets. Finland Sintef The largest independent research organisation in Scandinavia Norway ANNEX 2 – REFERENCES Bleda, Del Roi (2013) The market failure and the systemic failure rationales in technological innovation systems Research Policy Volume 42, Issue 5, June 2013, Pages 1039–1052 Estellés-Arolas, Enrique; González-Ladrón-de-Guevara, Fernando (2012), "Towards an Integrated Crowdsourcing Definition" (PDF), Journal of Information Science 38 (2): 189–200 Hossain, M. (2012a): Performance and Potential of Open Innovation Intermediaries. Procedia – Social and Behavioural Sciences, 58, 754-764. Hossain, M. (2012b): Open Innovation Mill: Utilization of Nokia's non-core Ideas. Procedia - Social and Behavioural Sciences, 58, 765-773. Lambert Toolkit (2014) UK Intellectual property office Piller, F. & Diener, K. (2013): The Market for Open Innovation: The 2013 RWTH Open Innovation Accelerator Survey. Technopolis and Pumacy (2016) Ermittlung des Bedarfs an einer internetbasierten Open Innovation-Plattform für KMU, freie Erfinder/innen, Universitäten und Forschungseinrichtungen UK Office for National Statistics (2016): Productivity Handbook West, J., Salter, A., Vanhaverbeke, W., & Chesbrough, H. (2014). Open innovation: The next decade. Research Policy, 43 (5), 805-811. ANNEX 3 – CONCEPT VISUALISATION ANNEX 4 – PRODUCTIVITY GAINS Productivity measurement is a highly complex area and a detailed discussion is outside the scope of this work. The UK’s Office of National Statistics has produced a Productivity Handbook21 to gather together some of the current discussions regarding productivity measurement. To illustrate the potential productivity impact of EIIM the main body of the report has set out examples of positive impacts under each of the ONS’s ‘five drivers’ of productivity – essentially a multi-factor approach. Work is ongoing to look at micro, or firm level productivity in this way. Micro data resources need to be mined and inter-related to make appropriate assessments and this is still an emerging field. According to the ONS multi-factor productivity is “a residual contribution to output growth of an industry or economy after calculating the contribution from all its inputs.” The ONS uses a growth accounting framework to break down the sources of economic growth into the contributions from labour, capital and other factors. However, growth accounting does not always capture the impacts of technological change. The ONS handbook, and the research sources cited below might help inform further consideration of how to best approach this in the context of EIIM impact measurement. Undertaking this at a European level will either require access to micro-data at Member State level or assumptions regarding similarity based on other demographic information. Chapter 12 of the ONS handbook provides some commentary regarding international comparisons regarding productivity. Below are examples of some studies undertaken by academic researchers on the ‘five drivers’ of productivity using ONS data. Competition The effects of competition on productivity, in enabling more productive firms to grow at the expense of others, and in giving firms a clear incentive to improve performance, can be seen in firm level data. One study shows that these processes, and the entry and exit of businesses associated with them, account for 20 per cent to 50 per cent of the increases in UK manufacturing productivity (Disney, Haskel and Heden, 2003). Similar effects have also been shown in the retail sector (Haskel and Khawaja 2003). There is also considerable evidence that businesses that are able to compete internationally, as multinationals in global markets, are able to reap productivity benefits (Criscuolo and Martin, 2003). Innovation Studies have shown that competition is positively associated with innovation by 21 http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160105160709/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/methodquality/specific/economy/productivity-measures/productivity-handbook/micro--or-firm-level--productivity/index.html firms (Aghion, Bloom, Blundell, Griffiths and Howitt, 2001). Innovation can boost productivity in two ways, by firms investing in R&D themselves and reaping the benefits from new or improved products and processes, or by ‘spill overs’ from creators of knowledge to other firms to compete. Studies have shown that both these processes – R&D investment and the use of external knowledge – influence the ability of firms to innovate (Criscuolo, Haskel and Slaughter, 2004). International sales and innovation have been shown to be associated with superior productivity (Harris and Li, 2005). Innovation includes not only technical development but also design and this too has been shown to generate positive returns (Haskel, Cereda, Crespi and Criscuolo, 2005). Investment Investment improves labour productivity by increasing the stock of capital available to workers. A number of studies have estimated the effects, and recent work has shown the specific productivity impacts associated with investment in IT hardware (Bloom, Van Reenen and Sadun, 2005). Investment in software and the use of ICT by employees have also been shown to be associated with higher levels of firm productivity (Farooqui, 2005). These effects are particularly large when supported by modern, broadband, communications networks (Farooqui and Sadun, 2006). Skills The quantity and quality of skills in an economy – or a firm – affect its productive capability. Linking of skills variables to ABI information has produced a series of analyses showing that both qualifications and occupations are associated with productivity effects (Haskel, Hawkes and Perriera, 2004). UK scope for this type of analysis is limited by available data, usually from the Annual Survey on Hours and Earnings (ASHE) – for occupations and the Employee Skills Survey – for qualifications. In Scandinavian countries, where individual worker characteristics can be linked to their employers, much more detailed studies are possible. Enterprise Enterprise – the creation of new firms to exploit new ideas – is essential to the competitive process. Studies into the demography of enterprises and the effect of entry of new firms on productivity have been carried out in a number of countries (Scarpetta, Hemmings, Tressel and Woo, 2002). ONS and Dutch work on the effects of ICT investment has shown that newer firms are better able to secure larger productivity gains. European Commission EUR — European Union Idea and Innovation Market – Concept development Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union 2016 — pp. 41 — A4 21 x 29.7 cm ISBN 978-92-79-61462-0 doi 10.2777/126363 Price (excluding VAT) in Luxembourg: EUR How to obtain EU publications Free publications: • one copy: via EU Bookshop (http://bookshop.europa.eu); • more than one copy or posters/maps: from the European Union’s representations (http://ec.europa.eu/represent_en.htm); from the delegations in non-EU countries (http://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/index_en.htm); by contacting the Europe Direct service (http://europa.eu/europedirect/index_en.htm) or calling 00 800 6 7 8 9 10 11 (freephone number from anywhere in the EU) (*). (*) The information given is free, as are most calls (though some operators, phone boxes or hotels may charge you). Priced publications: • via EU Bookshop (http://bookshop.europa.eu); Priced subscriptions: • via one of the sales agents of the Publications Office of the European Union (http://publications.europa.eu/others/agents/index_en.htm). KI-02-16-912-EN-N Europe has an abundance of ideas and research results with considerable innovation potential. However, much of that potential remains unrealised because the necessary interaction between those with the ideas and those who can help them to generate successful products and services fails to happen. One possible solution to address this failure is to create a European idea and innovation market. The European Commission would like to establish whether a European Innovation and Ideas Marketplace would be beneficial to maximise European innovation and thus maximise the economic and societal benefits of European research. Through desk research, interviews, a survey and learning from other ventures this study concludes that there is a strong support in principle for a solution that seeks to build on the many innovation platforms already in existence. An API-based approach allowing key information to be shared with the European Innovation and Ideas Marketplace was deemed to be most appropriate. It was acknowledged that support for development will need to be provided for the partner platforms if actual implementation is to actually happen. Studies and reports 978-92-79-61462-0 Price (excluding VAT) in Luxembourg: EUR
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