Social Economy for Local Governance Structures: Monitoring and Evaluation Perspectives.

Social economy , the ground between free market private benefit institutions , the State regulation and society , needs to be positively identified. The existing , traditional , monitoring and evaluation concepts , methods and tools are prooven to ineffectively identify and describe the social conjunctions , adherent to the social mediation of the economic sphere. Coherent , scientifically valid , approaches need to be formulated. Up to date methods and tools , capable of reaching and describing the social economy phenomenon , emerge as a useful contribution , as long as they refrain from the traditional economistic and administrative context. The creation of a positive , new grammar for the identification of social economy forms the core of our interest. Local governance structures tend to lean upon such trends as they require partnership organizations to meet successfully local priorities essential to combat exclusion, poverty, acculturation, community growth and employability. Recent trends in the evaluation of this strategic field will be provided.

Governance of regional innovations towards sustainability

This paper addresses the governance of regional innovations towards sustainability. From the literature it is clear that variety is a major source of innovations: innovations come into being in interplay between a variety of public and private actors who bring with them a large variety of identities, values, realities and practices. In this context, traditional concepts of governance such as planning and control, formalized processes and top–down steering are less appropriate. Yet some stability and structures are needed to create common understandings and mutual trust

Internationalising smart specialisation: assessment and issues in the case of EU New Member States

Smart specialisation is currently probably the largest innovation policy experiment in the world. Its aim is to move the EU less developed countries and regions on path of R&D based growth. This transformation requires not only endogenous knowledge and technology accumulation building but also coupling with international knowledge and production networks. Yet, internationalization does not seem to be a crucial component in the design and development of Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (RIS3), which is at odds with the strong dependence of the EU New Member States (EU-13) on FDI and global value chains. Our analysis is grounded in the key ’stylized facts’ related to EU-13 R&D&I activities, and the complex link between innovation and internationalization. Innovation systems in the EU-13 are fragmented and based on largely public R&D systems and on predominantly production oriented foreign direct investment (FDI). This structural weakness calls for stronger support for innovation oriented activities and for the integration of global value chains (GVCs) and FDI into local innovation systems. We explore the main obstacles to the internationalization of smart specialisation and discuss ways to overcome them. We highlight the policy action areas related to providing support for technology upgrading in relation to the internationalization of smart specialisation.JRC.J.2-Knowledge for Growt

Measuring the collective intelligence education index

War games and sports games always seek glory and excellence in an environment where participants enjoy what they do. Success is guaranteed in the degree of effective collaboration and coordination within the team members, as well as the strategy used by teams, such games or war strategies are generated since the birth of humanity. In this sense, the following questions emerge in the field of education: Is it possible to design learning activities that use this principle applied to collaborative work in the classroom? Which are the conditions of application of team competition strategy using ICT tools and how to measure it? This research explores the application of a web tool called Choose the Best (CTB). CTB implements a strategy that fosters competitiveness among the teams of a class, as well as the coordination and collaboration within the same, these types of strategies contribute to the development of Collective Intelligence levels. It's measured through a group of implemented metrics. Based on the results, we consider that the use of new forms of teaching and learning based on the emerging paradigms is necessary. Therefore, CTB is a tool that could become an effective way to measuring the group's performance according to Collective Intelligence paradigms.Postprint (author's final draft

Investigating co-innovation in exploratory partnerships: An analytical framework based on design theory

Intensive innovation contexts push organizations to search for new partnerships in order to explore value creation opportunities and to access external resources. Recent literature shows that more and more partnerships are established before the object and the terms of the partnership has been determined. In such exploratory partnerships (Segrestin 2006), motivated by the prospect of joint value creation and co-innovation, partners explore and progressively construct a common project and an agreement on the sharing of tasks and outputs. In this work we investigate co-innovation dynamics of exploratory partnerships within the context of MINATEC IDEAs Laboratory® (MIL). MIL comprises several industrial partners from different sectors and a major scientific partner specialized in micro-nanotechnologies. Partners of MIL share resources to explore new project ideas and co-innovation opportunities. A particularity of MIL is that all its industrial partners come from different business sectors. The diversity of agendas, competencies and design strategies exhibited at MIL allow the examination of different dimensions of exploratory partnerships: Are there different configurations of exploratory partnerships? What are the dynamics of exploration? How does the exploratory process converge? An analytical framework based on CK design theory is used in order to examine the dynamics of exploratory partnerships within MIL.co-innovation; exploratory partnership;design theory; design oriented organizations;collective action