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Methodological note 
The 35 participants to the workshop worked in separate groups, one per each of the main issue identified: the need of an integrated ecosystem; the cultural differences between public and private actors; the lack of funding for innovation; the unfit modalities of funding innovation.
They suggested specific actions that should be carried by European Commission and by stakeholders (themselves). For each issue, we present the key recommendations and some of the insight gained from the analysed cases. 1. Recommendations related to the integrated ecosystem The discussion resulted in the need for creating a comprehensive and unified system at the European level, connecting all the actors, enhancing the access to expertise, strengthening networking and activating mutual learning. In practical terms, this could take the form of: * Supporting the networking facilitation activities at EU level (e.g. an on line platforms), acting as a central platform and gathering a critical mass of stakeholders. The network should include actors coming from different domains and representing different interests (Universities and schools, investors, mentors, policy makers, entrepreneurs), which will exchange experiences, network and learn from each other. There could be more than one network, but connectivity between the different initiatives should be maintained, by engaging with existing local initiatives, such as incubators, accelerators, mentoring programs, investors in each country. The connection with local programmes will facilitate the access to the initiatives and resources, which already exist at the local level and in your own business community. * Ensure long-term planning combined with open evaluation and acceptance of failure: ecosystems grow organically over time. 4/5 year is the minimum timespan needed to see results. Evaluation is necessary, but results can’t be expected before 4/5 years and key performance indicators should be designed at the strategic level. Failure should be “normal” at the project level, indeed a low rate of project failure could be seen not as a success but as a failure indicator of the programme, because it could reveal the lack of truly innovative projects. Funders should also be evaluated by the recipients, through a sort of “rateyourfunders.com” approach, where different criteria should be applied (speed of response, burocratic load, flexibility in the system, value added offered by the programme in terms of connection…). * Creating communication and awareness about successful ecosystem activities, by sharing successes and failures of ecosystem building. There’s a need to greater understanding across stakeholders on the importance of ecosystems and platforms, and how to successfully stimulate them. The communication should be aimed at supporting the awareness on opportunities, but it should be also contribute to the creation of an innovation/entrepreneurship culture, by presenting concrete guides to ecosystem-building. * Lead by example: avoid the situation where innovation policies, rather than overcoming it, replicate the fragmentation across silos, institutional level, business sector, geographical areas. While it is reasonable that the geographical focus should remain in the geographical competence of the organisation, openness to European and global players should be a deliberate focus. Lessons learnt from case: The Penrose programme adopts a global approach, in partnership with Taiwanese organisations, and enables access to world-class services in the domain of 3d printing for multinational and SMEs alike. 2. Recommendations related to cultural problems for relationships between private / public actors * Foster the direct dialogue between public officials and entrepreneurs or SMEs Participants suggest that public administrations and governments should have more dialogue with entrepreneurs, companies, research organizations and stakeholders for the design and implementation of their policies. Governments and public administrations should contact not only intermediaries (chamber of commerce, industry representatives etc.) but they should establish direct contact with them especially when they are designing incentives and funding programs for innovation. However, public officers should also be protected in order to establish this dialogue so that they cannot be accused later on to favour some actors. Most times public officers are worried about discussing with private organizations. 
In this sense, online open interaction has the advantage of being visible to all, thereby avoiding the risk of unbalanced information. Officials should be encouraged (with appropriate clear guidelines) to interact as much as possible openly online with stakeholders. Mutual respect should be ensured: public officers should not consider themselves superior, and neither entrepreneur. Lesson learnt from case: Kublai project promoted constant online interaction between officials and potential beneficiaries as a new standard of communication. * Mobility programs for entrepreneurs and public officials In order to better understand both mind-sets and promote a real dialogue between public officials and entrepreneurs, participants suggest to design a mobility programs in order to hire entrepreneurs in European Commission for a short period with clear goals and remuneration; and for officers at European Commission to go out, work for a company or set up their business and then come back to European Commission. Economic incentives for both, officers and entrepreneurs should be clear. Lesson learnt from case:  Corporacion Tecnologica de Andalusia is a public-private partnership fully managed by the private sector, in order to ensure trust and outreach capacity between SMEs. 3. Recommendations related to lack of funding for innovation * Mobilize multiple, public and private, funding sources (such as EIF, business angels…). The lack of early stage funding should be addressed with an integrated perspective across the different funding instruments. The European Investment Fund should establish dedicated funding for technology startups, which have unique needs as compared to traditional business sectors. Public funding should extend beyond research to business development and market uptake. On the business side, these activities includes also to attract international investors, to mobilise Business Angel Network, to foster strong local early-stage funds. Appropriate tax regulation for incentivizing risk capital should be defined. * Upscale crowdfunding: regulatory bottlenecks to crowdfunding should be removed, in order to grasp the opportunities to democratize investment and mobilize the resources of a large number of investors. Crowdfunding could help reducing the early-stage funding gap in Europe, but once again European legislation replicates the delays of the European investors – it was the US, which first legislated to simplify crowdfunding for business through the recent JOBS act. * Reserve funding for SMEs. Many stakeholders invited the EC to provide quotas for funding and procurement to SMEs, as well as easier rules for participation, such as joining a project only for one year. Lesson learnt from case: Wim de Waele (iMinds) mentioned the UK seed enterprise investment scheme as one measure that can really have an impact and make a difference in the availability of risk funding. 4. Recommendations related to unfit modalities of funding for innovation * Provide value added services on top of funding. Funding, from both public and private funders, should be perceived as an intelligence tool to establish a profitable relationship with innovators. Funding should be perceived as the first step to greater collaboration. Government agencies should “by default” provide value added services on top of the funding, based on the huge amount of knowledge accumulated by managing funds. At EU level, it would be useful to have guidelines and cases of knowledge-intensive funding organizations, as well as the adoption of a similar approach in the context of Horizon 2020. Evidence should be made available about value added and hands-on management of funding schemes. * Clear time periods for call for proposals: not only the time for resolution of a call proposal is very long especially taking into account short term planning that companies are used to, but also it is not clear for SMEs when they are expected to start the project. There should be open evaluation and benchmarking tools for all research funders in Europe, as well as for private investors. * Enhance demand-side measures such as prizes and procurement: Inducement prizes are a modality of funding of innovation that proved to be successful to reach out and engaged to real innovators. A substantial part of research and innovation funding should be distributed as inducement prize. Procurement is also a largely unexploited tool with high potential, since it covers 16% of EU GDP. Innovative public procurement, in particular towards SMEs, could help reducing the early stage funding gap and help bridging the valley of death. Most importantly, grants, prizes and procurement should be used in an integrated way, covering different phases of the innovation cycle (multi-stage approach). For instance, often public procurement is used to purchase solutions, which emerged from inducement prizes. Lessons learnt from case: the Security Challenge links inducement prizes with risk capital, grants and public procurement. Many finalists receive capital investment, as members of the jury are also VCs. The challenge itself is used alongside the more traditional grant system and covers about 1% of the budget.

Comments words cloud

recognizing that an ecosystem is based on an economy of reciprocity...selfish competing interests need to be regulated, how? what mechanism?   will competing stakeholders be forthcoming with BI and initiatives that differentiate themselves from other stakeholders?  how open and truthful will communication be?  how do you test veracity of information?innovation incubators and KPI metrics are different from sme incubators...  a shotgun goal to fund a number of ideas (start-ups) is not an efficient metric... return on capital employed, spin-offs or cluster formation around a funded project... creating value not immediately monetized is a critical pursuit... (Bell Labs/Xerox)but the innovation incubators had clearly defined monetization channels... sustainability different valuation metric than short term profitability... other KPIs environmental impact, social risk mitigation, positive macroeconomic benefits...  the Palo Alto Research Center and Bell Labs offer models of captive innovation labs.. sme incubators provide support infrastructure to free entrepreneurs to engage innovation and create market driven enterprises... is the innovation process a competitive advantage that sme's are reluctant to share?
global e-commerce, virtual currencies, digital intellectual capital transcends national and regional boundaries... how many silos can exist in a sme? is Penrose an "open consortium" with no barriers to entry?  full transparency and open access to all innovations?  Does this threaten IP? Is this another example of intellectual capital deflation? see sum2llc blog post http://sum2llc.wordpress.com/2014/03/28/intellectual-capital-deflation/aligning the interest of dis-separate stakeholders in complex ecosystem is best accomplished with recognizing the equality 
of all forms of capital each stakeholder uniquely brings to the enterprise... Sum2 proposes The Hamilton Plan http://riskrapper.wordpress.com/?s=the hamilton planThe Hamilton Plan: Ten Point Program to encourage SME MAnufactures... http://riskrapper.wordpress.com/?s=the hamilton planFrom The Hamilton Plan:
SME Development Bank (SDB)

The SDB would be chartered to assure that capital is deployed to meet appropriate program projects and assure effective stewardship of shareholders capital. The SDB would be the repository for economic and regulatory capital. It would maintain capital adequacy ratios in conformance with Basel II directives. The SDB would serve as a fiduciary to distribute capital through local community banking channels. SDB governance would assure that program objectives, ownership equity, credit requirements, capital allocations, shareholder rights and incoKey: recognizing and conferring equality on all forms of capital...optimizing credit channels...matching funding vehicles to unique sme situation... from our credit|redi blog: http://creditredi.blogspot.com/2014/03/sme-capital-formation-money-to-main.htmlan SME Development Bank  Singapore long a model for sme incubation straining under new Basel III capital requirement rules for SME.... from Sum2 blog SME Risk Management http://smerisk.blogspot.com/2014/03/singapore-sling-basel-iii-amps-sme.htmlnot familiar with the initiative but one consideration for creating the another Silicon Valley must be intimately rooted in the expertise and cultural differentiation of the community in which it is based... that becomes tricky in the Age of the Avatar where virtual capital is at times more valuable than hard assets... but people are real and live in real houses in real neighborhoods... capital needs to flow into and be created by those communities...clearly the pressing issue of the day... rising above commodity valuation of capital... and how to national or supranational governing agencies properly value and tax virtual assets and and global e-commerce... see OECD tax proposal on digital assets.... http://www.oecd.org/tax/discus...
metrics, kpis, grc, yes yes yes.. frameworks surrounding innovation can hamper innovation.....our digital assets app for Android is free and available here: http://www.appsgeyser.com/872399 great stuff... aligning incentives with program goals... social entrepreneurship and sustainability rewards for environmental, political, public health macroeconomic should be extolledany questions or concerns about my off the cuff comments.... please contact: James Bradley McCallum, Sum2,LLC president@sum2.usSum2's creates risk management apps for SMEs... our free digital assets app for Android is available here: http://www.appsgeyser.com/8723...
Referring to a context populated by small firms, the participation to an ecosystem requires both a guide/intermediary which minimizes the searching and ‘translating’ and monitoring/assessing time for interaction with other economic and knowledge subjects AND the focus on linkages along the value chain/filière and on aggregation for those functions which require a critical mass, namely contacts with distribution chains, address to wide markets, access to knowledge and technology, adaptation of technology solutions, participation to shared/collective research projects, support to research bThe above mentioned ones are some of the actions which could pursue the aim of enhancing the number and quality of new ideas to be potentially put in place and to become a business activity, which seem to be one of the reasons for the still quite limited request for funding for innovation. Another constraint is the complexity of the contact and request process for accessing funds, both equity and ve ture capital ones.The ‘search and select’ and the ‘adapt to my case/build for my case’ processes are time consuming, even in an on line platform, and the adaptation part requires a customized activity which has to be added to the shared one. Interaction from the platform also to this customized part might be critical, especially if considering small firms. Again, allocate time to this activity knowing that it can pay back, have the adequate employee who can interact on the web might be some of the main obstacles to be faced.Areas for free interaction, where to post all sorts of critical aspects of both production process and product performance and functionality, looking for a – some times very simple  or already existing - solution, could help generating useful contacts close to the firm.Take advantage from the RIS3 process which sets mid-term goals based on the knowledge/technology/business structure of the region, and doing so enlarges the possibilities of orienting and converging the resources and minds, and stimulates cooperation. Public procurement as guide and stimulus of innovation is one of the policy tools added in the regional policy mix through PCP and could be reinforced.As for Public Procurement, on one side ask/help public bodies to be more informed/qualified/demanding customers which already will enhance the threshold for potential providers. On the other side, promote the Pre-commercial procurement initiative, which allows the public bodies to get involved in the Rto ensure critical mass, these types of activities should leverage the day-to-day business of the actors involved, preferably interconnecting those in an efficient way. E.g. by having 2 networking events with complementary target groups in one venue or back-2-back so the audiences can be introduced to both the conference topics and the crowd of the other event(s). Cfr. Future Internet Week (5 EU events being combined, with joint catering identifying cases of successful stepping up after failure is critical here to develop relevant role models => successful entrepreneurs and other societal role models that are willing to open up on the mistakes and failures they faced, entrepreneurs moving on from bankruptcy, etc - with good storytelling skills these could be inspirational cases! Cfr. Failing Forward conference: http://failingforward2013.wordpress.com/ecosystems have a lot to do with connecting people - networking activities involving the different stakeholders in such a network, facilitating them to share best practices and develop collaboration, is most efficient here. The Accelerator Assembly recently launched in a great initiative in this context - similar activities should be encouraged   these should be interconnected rather than completely in parallel.pan-European partnerships and activities could be a criteria to measure partners applying in EU projects - although it would hamper newly starting initiatives greatly...
the EU administration itself is also highly fragmented - it could be beneficial to start leading by example here and exchange best practices rather than by incentives, entrepreneurs are driven by impact => if these discussions tend to lead to very little actual change, they will drop out eventually. Especially if these types of 'brainstorm' exercises are repeated every few years without action in between. Best to involve them only if the political way to see the change through is really there, then they will be most willing to help implement that change in the best possible way. many big conferences get EU support - it would be fairly easy to include a public debate on the topics of relevance for interaction with entrepreneurs in those. Again, preferably build on existing opportunities rather than create new ones, putting everyone's agenda under even more pressure.the process to include SME's will be incredibly important - the current application processes require a lot of experience and/or a very expensive consultant to have at least a chance of being successful - success rates are around 5-10% which is also unlikely to attract SME's who cannot invest years and years before achieving. Smaller budgets with a more light-weight procedure (less administration-shorter decision cycle-multiple calls/year) but a higher chance of success would probably be the best way forward. smart investments are for sure a good idea, but the public agencies are not always best placed to provide that kind of expert coaching - this would be a good occasion to develop collaboration with entrepreneurs in the field, e.g. through "buddy" programs or "entrepreneur in residence" programs.
Preferably not through collaboration with the big consultancy firms for once ;-)