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

WHITE SPACES INNOVATION IN SWEDENAn interim conclusion regarding Swedish regional cluster innovation management isthat the platform model of building upon different regional and non-regional clusterexpertise is becoming established. This can be said to be the case increasingly where aless interventionist, market-led approach has traditionally been preferred as inÖstergötland. Not least, market shaping has proved much more difficult than expected,either when pursuing a linear innovation model perspective as the PEA experiencedemonstrated, or seeking to shape a public quasi-market with localised innovations thatperturb normal large scale procurement management practices. Condensing the contrastingregional approaches of Skåne and Västra Götaland, they are not as different as theyat first seem except Skåne‟s approach builds its „Infinity‟ bi-focus from the strategiclevel downwards while Västra Götaland, possibly having conducted strategic routemappingexercises earlier, can prepare and implement its action lines from a bottom-up,engineered perspective, calling in cluster expertise as and when required. This can includeexploiting bridges with many extra-regional clusters on precise innovation agendas.Thus Smart Textiles contributes to the regional healthcare Grand Challenge throughits links to biomaterials and bionics elaborated by interactions with the textiles arm ofthe Processum Hub. Equally Processum interacts with Göteborg BIO on new aspects ofthat cluster‟s transversality quest. This brings in biochemistry and biopharmaceuticalinputs issues related to Västra Götaland‟s „petroleum & health‟ initiative involving theregional oil refineries who are sympathetic to the region‟s Fossil Fuel Free 2030 initiativeby becoming „Greener‟ fuel processing businesses.3.4.5 Cluster & Agency Perspectives on Meeting GrandChallengesIn what follows brief accounts are presented of a number of regional clusters and regionalinnovation support agency perspectives on their trajectories towards meeting theEurope 2020 goals mediated by the ERA Grand Challenges as orienting devices forregional and national innovation enhancement. The foregoing discussion reveals that allregions studied have accepted this method of proceeding, that they interpret how best toachieve this in their own way dependent on regional societal, political and economicgeographyconsiderations. Central to this way of working is a recognition of the „valuevariety‟ that comes from the successful search for „relatedness‟ and „transversality‟ toidentify the „white spaces‟ among Swedish and home-region clusters and industries as aprelude to improving market potential abroad as a response to the present globalisationimperative for industry everywhere.However, each regional development agency is in the process of responding to variousinnovation perturbations consequent upon important changes in the inherited modelof innovation support. The global financial crisis of 2008-2010 demonstrated to theworld the folly of economies following the injunctions of linear innovation thinking asexpressed first in sectoral, later in cluster models of industrial support policy. Econo-65