Complexity in project co-creation of knowledge for innovation

Ruoslahti, Harri Co-creation of knowledge for innovation in multi-stakeholder projects Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä, 2019, 91 p. (JYU Dissertations ISSN 2489-9003; 138) ISBN 978-951-39-7867-9 The European Union (EU) promotes innovation through its research funding programmes that offer opportunities for the co-creation of knowledge involving diverse groups of academics, businesses and public organisations in project consortia. Although participants may have conflicting interests, during a project, the focus is sharing insights and experiences. Accordingly, this thesis aims to gain an understanding of knowledge co-creation for innovation in funded projects from the viewpoint of multi-stakeholder communication, focusing particularly on communication with and the participation of end-users. It does so by studying the topic from four theoretical perspectives: the co-creation of knowledge, innovation networks, knowledge development processes and the resilience of complex social networks. These function as a framework for the six studies and seven published papers of this thesis. The context of the studies delivering case data consists of eight EUfunded projects aimed at research and innovation. The findings show that common development goals serve as the basis for partners to engage in sharing insights and experiences while developing knowledge for innovation. The perspective of the co-creation of knowledge highlights the intensive interaction among the many diverse actors who engage in building relationships and trust to enable joint work on a common problem. The perspective of innovation networks highlights that comprehensive solutions may require different roles from actors facilitated by structures and communication expertise. The perspective of knowledge development processes points to evolving input, throughput and output communication when engaging various stakeholders, especially end-users, adapting participation strategies over time. The perspective of resilience of complex social networks emphasises agile project communication to address vulnerabilities through interdependencies. Research and innovation projects bring about complex processes that call for close attention to interactions among a diverse group of stakeholders and the ways that end-user participation takes form in various project phases. This thesis adds to the overall body of knowledge on co-creation in innovation networks and, in particular, collaboration within EU-funded research and innovation project consortia.

Co-creation of knowledge for innovation in multi-stakeholder projects

The New Society : the Anatomy of the Industrial Order

European authorities collaborate as a community toward a coherent approach of situational understanding and open trust base information sharing. Innovation in multi-stakeholder collaboration networks involve complex collaboration between user community members, providing cross-sector, cross-border and cross-authority interaction and information sharing for collaborative situation awareness, and cooperation to increase safety and security. This study analyses data consisting of elements of use cases, collected from EU funded innovation projects. These were placed in a table based on similarity, difference and relevance to produce a classification. The results of this study indicate that use cases and scenarios engage end-users to co-create very practical descriptions providing input communication for innovation projects; also multi-actor projects are complex networks thus, this study contributes to the network approach of innovation. The implications of this study are that reaching faster innovation can be facilitated by leading and organising projects well, providing appropriate feedback to ensure project plans and results stay connected with project goals, fostering project continuums, and having e.g. higher education institutions bring problems as project ideas. The results, innovations, and feedback from research and innovation projects can benefit the European society.

Complex Authority Network Interactions in the Common Information Sharing Environment

The purpose of this paper is to explore how knowledge creation in EU externally funded security Research and Innovation (R&I) projects can be understood through the concept of community of practice (CoP). A multiple case study design was used to examine EU R&I projects with the Wenger’s identity-practice framework that characterizes conventional CoPs. Qualitative data analysis was conducted based on rich empirical data collected during June 2015 – July 2017. The results of the study suggested that the EU R&I project consortium is a knowledge community in its own right, which knowledge creation cannot be fully understood if analysed as traditional project organizations. CoP framework can provide a meaningful way to investigate how explicit and tacit knowledge is created and shared within a project consortium and across different consortiums. Namely the engagement in different phases of the work undertaken by the project consortium can help to understand how the socialization facilitates knowledge creation and transfers, as well as identity development as the project evolves. As a whole, CoP theory can provide new insight in the knowledge creation in cross-border and cross-sectoral collaborations. It can provide a meaningful way to explore how the knowledge is emerged through a practice in project consortiums before, during, and after

Knowledge Creation in Cross-Border and Cross-Sectoral Collaborations : Exploring EU Externally Funded Security Research and Innovation Projects as Communities of Practice

Elisa Norvanto

Papers

Knowledge Creation in Cross-Border and Cross-Sectoral Collaborations : Exploring EU Externally Funded Security Research and Innovation Projects as Communities of Practice