European Service Innovation Centre conference -the transformative power of service innovation is on the horizon but the journey has just begun

The European Service Innovation Centre (ESIC) conference entitled ‘Service Innovation as a Driver of Change for European Industries and Regions’ took place in Helsinki on 9-10 September 2014 and attracted 140 participants representing academia, businesses and the public sector. The event focused on the key findings of, and lessons learned from, the advisory support provided by ESIC to the six model demonstrator regions and the European Service Innovation Scoreboard.

The presentations, speeches, panel discussions and electronic voting illustrated that “service innovation is now more than ever vitally important for the recovery, competitiveness and smart growth of European regions and industries, because it can offer opportunities for value and wealth creation.” Another message that came across very clearly was that service innovation on its own cannot resolve the grand societal challenges as, but a systemic policy approach is required that can support industrial transformation at regional level. There was also a consensus that the necessary tools, measures, policies and knowledge already exist, but that there is a lack of know-how on how they can be best exploited.

With the help of the Canary Islands, Emilia-Romagna, Limburg, Luxembourg, Northern Ireland and Upper Austria (the model demonstrator regions) ESIC has piloted an approach that enables European regions to gain a better understanding of the bottlenecks in their overall innovation ecosystems and of how to improve the integration of service innovation into their policy mixes. This approach comprises the two key elements of the European Service Innovation Scoreboard (ESIS) and the Self-Assessment Tool (SAT). The European Service Innovation Scoreboard provides a significant amount of data in a tabular and visual format that can be, and has been, used as the basis for further analysis, whereas the Self-Assessment Tool provides a reflection of the policy approach in a region. Both contribute to the initiation of a policy discussion that is combined with customised policy advice from ESIC to address the unique aspects of each region. Although mutual policy learning between regions is encouraged, it is now patently obvious that there is “no one size fits all” policy that can be applied across the EU.

The implementation of the approach in the six model demonstrator regions has highlighted the need for ownership, leadership and cross-sectoral knowledge sharing if a successful transformation process is to be implemented. The lessons learned from the work that ESIC has conducted in the six regions have been are summarised in a recently published synthesis report.

There was a strong plea from the conference participants that the results should be disseminated more widely and used to raise awareness of the findings and, in particular, those related to the implementation of smart specialisation strategies. The discussions and the electronic ‘have your say’ voting session showed that the systemic nature of the ESIC approach was strongly supported. According to the results, diverse support policies need to be combined to make better use of service innovation and such policies might include generating new business models, supporting knowledge development and transfer, removing barriers from access to finance and providing new or extended ways to network and collaborate across the EU and beyond.

The policy learning (41%) and wider advisory support (38%) were viewed by participants as the most important services of ESIC. As the key element for the renewal of European regions, participants also emphasised the creation of innovation platforms (50%) and the better use of regional clusters (23%), as being the key elements for the renewal of European regions, rather than the removal of trade barriers or the strengthening of Public-Private Partnerships.

ESIC has embarked on a journey with all of the six model demonstrator regions. The discussions at the conference showed that representatives of the regions have initiated change processes through their continuing hard work that is generating a real momentum. If the journey is continued with the key regional stakeholders taking clear ownership of these processes, then major impacts can be achieved. A strategic use of European Structural and Investment Funds and Horizon2020 funding, such as that available to support cluster-facilitated projects for new industrial value chains, can help to extend the reach and significance of the use of service innovation.

The conference featured input from the Business Innovation Observatory, from representatives of the High-Level Group on Business Services and the Committee of the Regions. All the presentations made during the conference are available on the ESIC website. A conference video will be available in due course at the ESIC website to promote awareness raising across Europe of the importance of the conference outcomes.