Bror Salmelin, adviser, European Commission's Directorate General for Communications, Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT)
Open innovation will lead to vast improvements in productivity out of research, said Bror Salmelin, an adviser at the European Commission’s Directorate General for Communications, Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT).
Salmelin, who specialises in innovation systems for the commission, said the quadruple helix of open innovation – universities, businesses, government and citizens – has the potential to offer quicker and more realistic outcomes than traditional research processes which have been confined to labs.
He said it is all about economics and speed to commercialisation. “Innovation is about creating value where the offer meets demand.
The economics of innovation
“Open innovation requires active participation on the part of citizens so entrepreneurs can quickly discover if a product will be a success or not. Traditional innovation was all about trying to anticipate what people want.
“What we want is quadruple helix innovation, meaning that the public can be involved in innovation from the beginning in real-world settings.
“Entrepreneurs can fail fast with the things that don’t work and if they are likely to be successful, they can scale really fast successfully.
“It’s about productivity for successes and the speed of those successes,” Salmelin said.
More on Open Innovation 2.0:
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