Innovations and Ecosystems : A Characterization of Smart Tampere Innovation Ecosystem

Abstract

The following thesis focuses on innovation ecosystem. As described in thefirst section, innovations are of great importance for tackling global challenges such as climate change andthus,of relevancy for the regional economic development. The growing importance of innovationshas motivated numerous new approaches to innovation management, especiallyin the last years the approach ofinnovation ecosystem.In the secondsection, the concept of innovation ecosystem is introduced and the most relevantconcepts from the literature are discussed. It thereby compares innovation ecosystem to other concepts such as regional innovation system and other types of ecosystems.On the basis of the previous literature, aframework for characteristics ofinnovation ecosystem and ecosystem leadership ispresented for studying the case of Smart Tampere.Thestudy contributes to thefragmentedliterature on innovation ecosystem by conducting a case study in Tampere, Finlandon the city’s Smart Tampere -programmeand characterizing the local innovation ecosystem as well as looking at the perceived and expected role of Smart Tampere as public sector representant of ecosystem orchestrator. Smart Tampere -programme provides ecosystems in different areas of smartdevelopment. Then, the third section describes the procedure ofcase selection to conducting qualitative semi-structured interviews on three different groups of ecosystem actors (city officers, university, growth companies)and the approach to analysis. The results are presented in the fourthsection. Theecosystem is characterized by being strongly bound to the local context. Whereas innovation is not the goal but the mean to find solutions, each actor followed their own set of goals with the understanding of the need of collaboration.Results are then discussed and put into perspective in the fifthpart of the thesis.As such, innovation ecosystem grasps the complexity of the phenomenon but is object to a lot of interpretations due to unclear definition. No matter what concept for innovation management is used, private sector actors call for long-term plans and clearer structures from the public sector. Keywords: Innovation ecosystem, innovation management, local context, regional development, Tampere