Project Team: Dr. Jamie Power ([email protected])
This project was funded by the Irish Research Council’s (formerly IRCHSS) New Ideas Scheme. It had a lead time of 3 months, and was completed in April 2012.
The Project Aim
The project aimed to contribute to Ireland’s emerging service innovation agenda by:
• Mapping Ireland’s service innovation ecosystem and state-of-the-art;
• Synthesising Ireland’s service innovation research challenges and opportunities through a roadmap development;
• Profiling leading international service innovation research centres and project developments;
• Establishing introductory engagements with international service innovation researchers/centres to facilitate potential learning, foresight project and consortium developments;
• Identification of European project and funding programmes to support sustainable service innovation collaboration and project development;
• Dissemination and knowledge transfer of the research outputs to research, industry, academic and policy stakeholders.
Methods
To address the diverse aims of the project, a combination of research methods were deployed. Firstly, an extensive programme of secondary research was conducted to capture and profile national and international literature and project activity in the field. Secondly, a strategic international foresight collaboration and knowledge transfer visit to the Fraunhofer Institute in Stuttgart, Germany was conducted. Finally, a programme of semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders within Ireland’s service innovation ecosystem also informed the project.
Engagement Activity
Reflecting Ireland’s multidisciplinary research, industry, academic and policy innovation ecosystem, representatives from each of these sectors were involved in the primary and second research stages. In terms of demonstrating the international engagement, the research facilitated development and coordination of a Full COST Action proposal through virtual collaboration with 16 EU partners and an international foresight collaboration and knowledge transfer visit to the Fraunhofer Institute in Stuttgart, Germany. Findings from the programme of research have been presented to industry, policy and research audiences at the 2012 InterTrade Ireland Innovation Conference and the 2012 Irish Academy of Management Conference.
Impact
The project generated significant outcomes for research, policy and socio-economic applications, including:
• Development of a research roadmap for service innovation transcending policy, enterprise and research domains;
• The development of networking and collaboration channels at national and international levels;
• Contributed to the development and submission of a Full COST Action proposal with 16 international service innovation partners;
• Identification of international project and funding programmes and membership of European service innovation networks to support foresight international collaboration and project development activities;
• Enhancement of Ireland’s knowledge-base through the development of knowledge transfer and dissemination instruments in the form of conference publications.
RIKON 2013.