Impact in networks and ecosystems: building case studies that make a difference

open accessThis toolkit aims to support the building up of case studies that show the impact of project activities aiming to promote innovation and entrepreneurship. The case studies respond to the challenge of understanding what kinds of interventions work in the Southern African region, where, and why. The toolkit has a specific focus on entrepreneurial ecosystems and proposes a method of mapping out the actors and their relationships over time. The aim is to understand the changes that take place in the ecosystems. These changes are seen to be indicators of impact as increased connectivity and activity in ecosystems are key enablers of innovation. Innovations usually happen together with matching social and institutional adjustments, facilitating the translation of inventions into new or improved products and services. Similarly, the processes supporting entrepreneurship are guided by policies implemented in the common framework provided by innovation systems. Overall, policies related to systems of innovation are by nature networking policies applied throughout the socioeconomic framework of society to pool scarce resources and make various sectors work in coordination with each other. Most participating SAIS countries already have some kinds of identifiable systems of innovation in place both on national and regional levels, but the lack of appropriate institutions, policies, financial instruments, human resources, and support systems, together with underdeveloped markets, create inefficiencies and gaps in systemic cooperation and collaboration. In other words, we do not always know what works and what does not. On another level, engaging users and intermediaries at the local level and driving the development of local innovation ecosystems within which local culture, especially in urban settings, has evident impact on how collaboration and competition is both seen and done. In this complex environment, organisations supporting entrepreneurship and innovation often find it difficult to create or apply relevant knowledge and appropriate networking tools, approaches, and methods needed to put their processes to work for broader developmental goals. To further enable these organisations’ work, it is necessary to understand what works and why in a given environment. Enhanced local and regional cooperation promoted by SAIS Innovation Fund projects can generate new data on this little-explored area in Southern Africa. Data-driven knowledge on entrepreneurship and innovation support best practices as well as effective and efficient management of entrepreneurial ecosystems can support replication and inform policymaking, leading thus to a wider impact than just that of the immediate reported projects and initiatives

The importance of socio-technical resources for software ecosystems management

AbstractSoftware Ecosystem (SECO) is often understood as a set of actors interacting among themselves and manipulating artifacts with the support of a common technology platform. Usually, SECO approaches can be designed as an environment whose component repository is gathering stakeholders as well as software products and components. By manipulating software artifacts, a technical network emerges from interactions made over the component repository in order to reuse artifacts, improving code quality, downloading, selling, buying etc. Although technical repositories are essential to store SECO’s artifacts, the interaction among actors in an emerging social network is a key factor to strengthen the SECO’s through increasing actor’s participation, e.g., developing new software, reporting bugs, and communicating with suppliers. In the SECO context, both the internal and external actors keep the platform’s components updated and documented, and even support requirements and suggestions for new releases and bug fixes. However, those repositories often lack resources to support actors’ relationships and consequently to improve the reuse processes by stimulating actors’ interactions, information exchange and better understanding on how artifacts are manipulated by actors. In this paper, we focused on investigating SECO as component repositories that include socio-technical resources. As such, we present a survey that allowed us to identify the relevance of each resource for a SECO based on component repositories, initially focused on the Brazilian scenario. This paper also describes the analysis of the data collected in that survey. Information of other SECO elements extracted from the data is also presented, e.g., the participants’ profile and how they behave within a SECO. As an evolution of our research, a study for evaluating the availability and the use of such resources on top of two platforms was also conducted with experts in collaborative development in order to analyze the usage of the most relevant resources in real SECO’s platforms. We concluded that socio-technical resources have aided collaboration in software development for SECO, coordination of teams based on more knowledge of actor’s tasks and interactions, and monitoring of quality of SECOs’ platforms through the orchestration of the contributions developed by external actors

Mapping and assessment of ecosystems and their services. Urban ecosystems

Action 5 of the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 requires member states to Map and Assess the state of Ecosystems and their Services (MAES). This report provides guidance for mapping and assessment of urban ecosystems. The MAES urban pilot is a collaboration between the European Commission, the European Environment Agency, volunteering Member States and cities, and stakeholders. Its ultimate goal is to deliver a knowledge base for policy and management of urban ecosystems by analysing urban green infrastructure, condition of urban ecosystems and ecosystem services. This report presents guidance for mapping urban ecosystems and includes an indicator framework to assess the condition of urban ecosystems and urban ecosystem services. The scientific framework of mapping and assessment is designed to support in particular urban planning policy and policy on green infrastructure at urban, metropolitan and regional scales. The results are based on the following different sources of information: a literature survey of 54 scientific articles, an online-survey (on urban ecosystems, related policies and planning instruments and with participation of 42 cities), ten case studies (Portugal: Cascais, Oeiras, Lisbon; Italy: Padua, Trento, Rome; The Netherlands: Utrecht; Poland: Poznań; Spain: Barcelona; Norway: Oslo), and a two-day expert workshop. The case studies constituted the core of the MAES urban pilot. They provided real examples and applications of how mapping and assessment can be organized to support policy; on top, they provided the necessary expertise to select a set of final indicators for condition and ecosystem services. Urban ecosystems or cities are defined here as socio-ecological systems which are composed of green infrastructure and built infrastructure. Urban green infrastructure (GI) is understood in this report as the multi-functional network of urban green spaces situated within the boundary of the urban ecosystem. Urban green spaces are the structural components of urban GI. This study has shown that there is a large scope for urban ecosystem assessments. Firstly, urban policies increasingly use urban green infrastructure and nature-based solutions in their planning process. Secondly, an increasing amount of data at multiple spatial scales is becoming available to support these policies, to provide a baseline, and to compare or benchmark cities with respect to the extent and management of the urban ecosystem. Concrete examples are given on how to delineate urban ecosystems, how to choose an appropriate spatial scale, and how to map urban ecosystems based on a combination of national or European datasets (including Urban Atlas) and locally collected information (e.g., location of trees). Also examples of typologies for urban green spaces are presented. This report presents an indicator framework which is composed of indicators to assess for urban ecosystem condition and for urban ecosystem services. These are the result of a rigorous selection process and ensure consistent mapping and assessment across Europe. The MAES urban pilot will continue with work on the interface between research and policy. The framework presented in this report needs to be tested and validated across Europe, e.g. on its applicability at city scale, on how far the methodology for measuring ecosystem condition and ecosystem service delivery in urban areas can be used to assess urban green infrastructure and nature-based solutions

Integrating economic values and catchment modelling

Integrated catchment policies are widely used to manage natural resources in Australian catchments. Decision support tools available to aid integrated catchment management are often limited in their integration of environmental processes with socio-economic systems. Fully integrated models are required to support assessments of the environmental and economic trade-offs of catchment management changes. A Bayesian Network (BN) model is demonstrated to provide a suitable approach to integrate environmental modelling with economic valuation. The model incorporates hydrological, ecological and economic models for the George catchment in Tasmania. Information about the non-market costs and benefits of environmental changes is elicited using Choice Experiments, allowing an assessment of the efficiency of alternative management scenarios.Integrated catchment modelling, Bayesian networks, Uncertainty, Environmental values, Non-market valuation, Choice Modelling.,

Integrated Hydro-Economic Modelling: Challenges and Experiences in an Australian Catchment

Integrated catchment policies are widely used to manage natural resources in Australian catchments. Integration of environmental processes with socio-economic systems is often difficult due to the limitations of decision support tools. To support assessments of the environmental and economic trade-offs of changes in catchment management, fully integrated models are needed. This research demonstrates a Bayesian Network (BN) approach to integrating environmental modelling with economic valuation. The model incorporates hydrological, ecological and economic models for the George catchment in Tasmania. Choice experiments were used to elicit information about the non-market costs and benefits of environmental changes. This allows the efficiency of alternative management scenarios to be assessed.Hydro-economic modelling, Integrated catchment modelling, Ecological modelling, Valuation, Bayesian networks, Water quality, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use,

Participatory GIS in Mapping Ecosystem Services: Two Case Studies from High-Biodiversity Regions in Italy and Peru

Assessing ecosystem services (ES) and mapping their values are of paramount importance. Here we present two case studies where the participatory mapping of social values of landscape ecosystem services is used in territories with high levels of cultural and biological diversity (Adamello Brenta Natural Park in Italy and the Alto Mayo basin in the Western Amazon, Peru). A mixed-method approach combining social geography fieldwork (participatory mapping) and desk work (GIS analyses) is adopted to improve ES mapping by including multiple actors and to increase awareness. Mapping ecosystem services is not just a technical task; it also highlights social implications of the cartographic process, a key issue in human geography. By taking into account the controversial and multiple roles of maps, and by involving actors in attributing values and mapping their spatial relations to landscape and ES, it is possible to enrich technical knowledge with local knowledge