Working together for impact

Despite challenges in many river basins, overall the planet has enough water to meet the full range of peoples’ and ecosystems’ needs for the foreseeable future, but equity will only be achieved through judicious and creative management

Spatial and Non-Spatial Drivers for Design Thinking in Knowledge Ecosystems

The concept of knowledge ecosystems is an emerging arena to reconsider the design thinking processes from a perspective which comprises different levels of knowledge interaction, and how those are regulated by different dimensions. The issue of design thinking is the most relevant for creative industries emerging around creativity and knowledge and providing innovation, change and impact through interaction, however, existing research inadequately connects design thinking both to physical and non-physical dimensions of knowledge ecosystems. Despite knowledge interaction is vastly regarded as a face-to-face communication for design thinking at micro-scale, it appears and be proficient as it involves non-spatial drivers at various scales. Therefore, this paper provides a more comprehensive and multi-disciplinary theoretical approach to this phenomenon, linking separate discourses revolve around different themes: spatiality of knowledge ecosystems, creative industries and design thinking. The paper aims to explore how different dimensions of knowledge ecosystems are influential on design thinking in terms of knowledge interaction and to investigate the key drivers for design thinking. The main evaluation suggests that a geographical proximity enables reduced cost, spontaneous knowledge exchange within ecosystems, however, proximity should not be described in only spatial terms as prior to the others. The findings reveal additional non-spatial drivers: social network, institutions, cognitive proximity and organizational proximity have essential contributions to design thinking processes in terms of knowledge interaction

William (Bill) Peterson's contributions to ocean science, management, and policy

© The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Schwing, F. B., Sissenwine, M. J., Batchelder, H., Dam, H. G., Gomez-Gutierrez, J., Keister, J. E., Liu, H., & Peterson, J. O. William (Bill) Peterson's contributions to ocean science, management, and policy. Progress in Oceanography, 182, (2020): 102241, doi:10.1016/j.pocean.2019.102241.In addition to being an esteemed marine ecologist and oceanographer, William T. (Bill) Peterson was a dedicated public servant, a leader in the ocean science community, and a mentor to a generation of scientists. Bill recognized the importance of applied science and the need for integrated “big science” programs to advance our understanding of ecosystems and to guide their management. As the first US GLOBEC program manager, he was pivotal in transitioning the concept of understanding how climate change impacts marine ecosystems to an operational national research program. The scientific insight and knowledge generated by US GLOBEC informed and advanced the ecosystem-based management approaches now being implemented for fishery management in the US. Bill held significant leadership roles in numerous international efforts to understand global and regional ecological processes, and organized and chaired a number of influential scientific conferences and their proceedings. He was passionate about working with and training young researchers. Bill’s academic affiliations, notably at Stony Brook and Oregon State Universities, enabled him to advise, train, and mentor a host of students, post-doctoral researchers, and laboratory technicians. Under his collegial guidance they became critical independent thinkers and diligent investigators. His former students and colleagues carry on Bill Peterson’s legacy of research that helps us understand marine ecosystems and informs more effective resource stewardship and conservation

THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A CREATIVE ECONOMY IN THE CONTEXT OF THE FORMATION OF AN INNOVATIVE BUSINESS ECOSYSTEM

The aim of the study is to analyze the theoretical basis of creative economy and its development trends in the context of innovative business ecosystems formation. The scientific novelty of the research consists in solving the most important scientific and applied problem - further development of theoretical provisions of creative economy, ecosystems, as well as substantiation of the conceptual approach to the formation of innovative business ecosystem as a coherent management model. In the process of research, general scientific and special methods were used: scientific abstraction, deduction, analysis and synthesis, system and critical analysis, structural-logical, ascending from the abstract to the concrete, and statistical analysis. It has been substantiated that the priority development of creative economy as a strategic driver of sustainable development is the formation of an ecosystem conducive to the development of complex non-linear dynamic innovation processes, development of value propositions and value chain. The analysis of theoretical and methodological aspects of formation and functioning of ecosystems indicates the lack of development of this problem and the need to develop scientific approaches to their identification. Generalization of the results of theoretical analysis allowed us to group ecosystems according to the identified attributes into five main types. It was substantiated that a sustainable business ecosystem is a favorable environment for innovation to increase its value and contribute to the achievement of sustainable development goals. It is proposed to consider a sustainable "business ecosystem" as a coherent management model with established characteristics, which describes an aggregate system of business ecosystem modules that interact with each other and are focused on co-creation and co-production of value.

Managing systemic risk using systems thinking in practice

Managing uncertainties associated with, say, water security, toxic wastes, or biotechnology, invites growing relevance from the field of complexity sciences that everything is connected. Systems ideas such as complex adaptive systems or the ecosystems approach have consequently gained attention in recent years for promoting more joined-up thinking. But such ideas of systems have limited currency. Issues about interconnections – and calls for joined-up thinking – ought not to be seen in isolation from related systems issues of multiple values and different stakeholder perspectives. Moreover, such issues are related to political issues of partiality and selectivity – that is, system boundary judgements that circumscribe perspectives. A practical dimension of systems thinking using the metaphor of conversation and creative space prompts a more systemic appreciation of real world interconnections in relation to multiple perspectives and boundary judgements. Systems thinking in practice provides a more appropriate systemic space for managing systemic risk

The Cross-Sector Collaboration for Development Policy of Rural Creative Economy: The Case of Bengkoang Creative Hub

This paper examines a cross-sector collaborative model for development policy in a creative economy in a rural area setting. The creative economy based on the village’s creative potential is considered capable of contributing to the national economy, but it should be supported by public policies that are adaptive to the potential and needs of creative economy actors. The paper used a qualitative approach with case studies in Banyumas Regency, Central Java, Indonesia. This village represents one of the leading creative economy subsectors in Indonesia, which is culinary. The study found that collaboration among Penta Helix forces played multiple roles in driving rural creative actors and building rural creative ecosystems. The stages of collaboration were identified in strengthening organizational structure, program implementation, and organizational consolidation.  Organizational capability and innovation have been growing in rural creative economy actors during cross-sector collaboration implementation. This study provides insights into how Penta Helix collaborates with rural creative actors to promote the rural creative economy. From a public policy perspective, this study fills a significant gap in the literature regarding rural development models that are not covered much in the creative economy policy

Cultural and creative ecosystems in medium-sized cities: Evolution in times of economic crisis and pandemic

This article seeks to forecast the short-and medium-term impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on the cultural and creative ecosystems of the 81 cities in Spain with between 50, 000 and 100, 000 inhabitants. Data on employment in nine sectors (per NACE Rev. 2) support the characterization of cultural ecosystems based on their dynamism, specialization, and propensity to form clusters (thanks to the co-location of certain sectors, meant to generate inter-sectoral spillovers and cross-sector synergies). The applied methodology consists of comparing these three attributes during and following the 2008 financial crisis. Then, any changes observed are interpreted in light of arguments from the COVID-19 literature, and from our own analysis, in order to assess the probability of recurrence (or nonrecurrence) during the current pandemic. Throughout this process, the metropolitan or non-metropolitan position of cities is taken into consideration. A first conclusion is that, as in the financial crisis, the behavior of ecosystems during the pandemic will be asymmetric. Secondly, metropolitan and non-metropolitan cities will maintain their distinctive sectoral specializations. Non-metropolitan cities appear to be more vulnerable for their strong connection to creative sectors most affected by the pandemic, although some can take advantage of good cultural supply and proximity to metropolitan centers. Metropolitan cities seem more secure, thanks to the higher presence of less vulnerable sectors (due to elevated and accelerating digitization). Nevertheless, most functional clusters were diminished during the financial crisis, and it seems unlikely that sectoral co-locations will re-emerge in a post-pandemic scenario as a business strategy, at least in the short term. Beyond these forecasts, we recommend dealing with certain structural failures of these ecosystems, especially the vulnerability and precariousness of most cultural and creative companies and workers

Modular eco-class: an approach towards a sustainable innovative learning environment in Egypt

Today, Egypt suffers from deterioration of education quality as a result of deficient learning spaces, insufficient governmental expenditure and funding, and lack of proper research in education developmental strategies. Additionally, 21st century learning requires innovative spaces that connect school, home, and community. Therefore, new learning spaces should increase flexibility, support hands-on and outside-class learning activities in order to motivate learners. Furthermore, they intend to encourage extra-curricular activities beyond conventional learning times. Undoubtedly, comfortable, safe and creative learning spaces can inspire and motivate users, while ugly/unsafe spaces can depress. Therefore, welldesigned learning spaces are able to support creative, productive and efficient learning processes on one hand. On the other hand, ecological design measures became an increasingly major keystone for modern sustainable learning-spaces. Thus, learning-spaces’ design process, form, components, materials, features, and energy-saving technologies can yield well-educated, environmentally-literate, energy-conscious, and innovative future-generations. This paper represents a preliminary phase of an ongoing research project that aims to create a framework for an Innovative Sustainable Learning Environment (ISLE) in developing countries, the Middle East region, and Egypt in particular. This project aims at encouraging constructive relationships between users, buildings, ecosystems and to improve quality of learning through intelligent and ecologically well designed learning-spaces. The paper proposes the concept of modular Eco-Class as a framework of learning spaces and a stepforward in the direction of ISLE. Moreover, this Eco-Class aims to educate and provide balance between building’s environmental sensitivity, high performance, initial cost, and lifecycle costs without harming the surrounding ecology. The Eco-Class not only intends to promote a positive environmental impact to improve indoor air quality and energy efficiency, it also provides on its own an environment that educates learners and elevates environmentalawareness between future generations. Finally, the study and the ongoing research project of Eco-Class aim to provide validated design-guidelines for sustainable educational buildings, and to achieve the optimum innovative and sustainable learning environment in Egypt for effective and creative future-generation learners, parents, staff, and communities