Open Innovation Ecosystems: Identifying and using new cooperation and exchange formats between research, industry, politics and society

Innovations should not only be technically and economically feasible, they must also be ecologically and socially compatible. To ensure this, close cooperation between science, business, politics and society in open innovation ecosystems is required.

Taking up this ecosystemic idea, the collaborative project "Open Innovation Ecosystems" investigates how the role and position of non-university research institutions can be strengthened in the design of innovation processes. The aim of the joint project is to support research institutions in this process by developing and providing new methods of knowledge transfer.

The collaborative project "Open Innovation Ecosystems" is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research under the funding line "Innovation orientation of research". It is carried out in cooperation with the Fraunhofer Center for Responsible Research and Innovation (CeRRI) of Fraunhofer IAO.

The WZB sub-project "Construction, Testing, Organization and Consolidation of Experimental Spaces in Complex Social Environments" focuses on processes of social and technical innovation in the field of mobility and transport. The aim of method development is to design experimental spaces as a new type of research that can complement the range of social science knowledge transfer and strengthen the social impact of social science and humanities.

Experimental spaces are places of their own where actors from different social fields can try out innovations together for a limited period of time. The results of these trial activities cannot be evaluated solely in terms of technical and economic feasibility. Rather, the practicability and generalizability of experimental action should be critically examined and reflected upon with regard to social and ecological compatibility.

In this subproject, an orientational knowledge will be developed which individual scientists, research projects and groups, departments or institutes can draw on to decide in which areas research in experimental settings is possible and useful for them.