Innovation Camp:

Innovation Camp:

A tool for Circular Economy

product development

Nilsson-Lindén & Santonen LCM2019 – Poznan, Poland

Innovation Camp (IC)

A multi-day event where a group of carefully selected stakeholders having diverse but complementary expertise meet locally and create a common understanding of a complex societal challenge and together in teams develop, present, and review, in a

co-creative manner, user-centered concepts and solutions*

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Aim of the study

• Pilot test the usefulness of the IC methodology in the context of

circular economy (CE)

• Aim: to develop and implement a circular economy approach by developing new sustainable products and services through their value and supply chains

• Horizon 2020 Call: CIRC-01-2016-2017 Systemic eco-innovative approaches for the circular economy: large-scale demonstration projects

• Duration: 3-year project: (05/2018 - 04/2021) • Consortium: 17 partners from 8 EU countries

• Budget: Over 7M Euros including EU funding of 6,3M Euros

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 776503

-CIRC4Life-H2020-IND-CE-2016-2017/CIRC-2017/TwoStage

• 80 participants, 3,5-day long IC

▪ invited experts ▪ business owners ▪ project partners

• Participants were divided in working groups

▪ based on industry sectors and CE approaches

• Groups rotated according to a preset schedule

▪ experts and business owners from all groups met during the IC

• Group discussions

▪ targeting specific opportunities and barriers for each duo-group setting ▪ using predefined tools (e.g. visual mapping)

Online feedback survey

• 58 % response rate

• 89 % of all respondent found new contacts initiated by the IC • 100 % of respondents gained new insights and knowledge

▪ of which >50% did so to a great or to very great extent

• 36 % could apply the new knowledge to great or to very great extent to their work

• 95 % of respondents would probably or definitely attend an IC again

Gains for business owners

▪ Sustainability idea

▪ Certain knowledge gaps

▪ Evaluate the preliminary idea ▪ Look for new insights

▪ Process

▪ Met many experts from different fields in a short period of time

▪ Repeated explanation of current business model and sustainability issues

▪ Collaborative brainstorming with thematic experts

LED light company

Develop more sustainable product e.g. modular design, recycled materials / materials suitable for

recycling

Lacked adequate knowledge concerning materials suitable for recycling

→ Gained important knowledge and contacts

→ Was inspired to use storytelling as a tool for sustainability communication

Gains for invited experts

• Learn from several sectors/industries in a short period of time

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Voices of the IC

“As a policy expert, I am often frustrated by the lack of opportunity to enrich my understanding with the field

experience of others and this was a great way to do that”

“A unique opportunity to meet with leaders from multiple scientific fields and the industry and work

together on resolving issues in circular economy” “I am bringing back to my organization a lot of practical

solutions and huge international network to deploy in our day-to-day business”

Gains for project management

• Presentations of project plans to CE experts outside the project

• Feedback on current project plans

• Suggestions to reconsider certain parts of execution

Meat company

Originally planed to demonstrate a food recycling system which implied separation of

meat from other food sources

→ Partly due to the IC feedback revised the plan to instead plan and demonstrate recycling of

Conclusions

• IC can be a valuable tool for rapidly establishing new collaborations

• IC can provide a good way of creating a comprehensive learning situation for both business owners and experts

• IC can facilitate knowledge sharing between actors in different parts of the circular economy system and among project consortiums

• IC can create validation of pre assumptions within the project, thus identify the possible risks as early as possible

Hanna Nilsson-Lindén

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Hanna.Linden@ri.se

Teemu Santonen

LAUREA University of Applied Sciences

Teemu.Santonen@laurea.fi

Contact:

Thank you for listening!

Please contact us for comments or

References

Santonen, T., Nevmerzhitskaya, J., Purola, A., & Haapaniemi, H. (2019). Open Innovation Camp (OIC) – A tool for solving complex problems rapidly. https://openlivinglabdays.com/2019/08/16/conference-proceedings/