1. Business Innovation Observatory
Semester 2 – February 2014
Trend report ‘Design for
innovation, smart living and
innovative business models; how
to scale-up successes?’
Enterprise
and Industry
Contact
ENTR-INNOVATION-POLICY-FOR-GROWTH@ec.europa.eu
Learn more about the Business Innovation Observatory:
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/bio
Main messages from the trend report
The policy gaps and challenges identified in the report call for trend-specific framework
conditions since traditional framework conditions are often not adapted to the new
innovation trends, practices and models. An important policy instrument is setting up
platforms which bring together solvers and users, various sectors and trend-specific actors.
The main challenge is in co-designing regulations and framework conditions which
support these innovation trends and emerging sectors. It also involves the support to co-
design activities, the scaling-up, as well as international outreach of successful practices.
The trends call for a more active and strategic participation of policy makers in supporting
and scaling-up of these successful and relevant trends. In order to promote and benefit
from innovation the speed in policy learning has to be increased, and the rhythm and
timing in policy making and scaling-up becomes essential.
Policy makers should more actively join as partners in ‘co-designing innovation’. The
need for co-designed innovation strategies is emphasised in the concept of Smart
Specialisation Strategies. Choosing the fields of regional specialisation should not be done
top-down by policy-makers, but in a joint entrepreneurial discovery process based on
interaction with companies and other stakeholders.
A common recommendation from the showcased companies refers first of all to
regulatory issues, since legislation is often a main obstacle for the transformative power
of the trends. Lack of standardisation and harmonisation, too much bureaucracy, and
outdated and strict regulations are significant obstacles.
The Business Innovation Observatory
trend report:
understanding and transferring new
innovation practices
The three emerging trends of ‘Design for Innovation’, ‘Smart Living’, and ‘Innovative Business
Models for Global Competitiveness’ are investigated in the second batch of 12 case studies
published by the Business Innovation Observatory. These new trends are designed and formalised
through new innovation models and practices which not only transform the existing ‘business
models’ of the involved companies, but also their ‘innovation models’. User involvement as well
as the incorporation of design into the innovation process can be seen as an overarching trend.
The second trend report, labelling the three trends as ‘co-designed innovation models’,
identifies some key issues among the trends in order to better understand these new innovation
practices and how policy can support the scaling up of the successes. The report also includes
recommendations resulting from the second Business Innovation Observatory workshop held in
Berlin on 26 February 2014.