Relevance of OI

Companies too rarely succeed in turning research into innovation and in getting research results to market. This especially holds true for Europe (read more about here). Therefore, for a focused expansion of knowledge and innovation processes the civil society has to be included: citizens, user crowds, user communities, associations, non-profit organizations as well as the creative industries, arts and cultural organizations must be integrated because they ensure that research and innovation processes address the right questions and contribute valuable ideas for solutions. That is why this model encompasses user-oriented innovation models to take full advantage of ideas' cross-fertilisation leading to experimentation and prototyping in real world setting.

Differentiation at the international level means to overcome industry, disciplinary and organisational boundaries in a systematic and targeted manner. This enables to foster new forms of interaction and partnerships between previously non-traditional knowledge senders and to generate new types of knowledge.

    “Apart from putting the user at the centre and enabling new players to enter traditional markets, the digital economy has the capacity to create entirely new markets.”
    (Commissioner Carlos Moedas, The democratisation of innovation, Rome, 28 October 2015)

The speed and scale of digitalisation are accelerating and transforming the way companies design, develop and manufacture products, the way they deliver services, and the products and services themselves. It is enabling new innovation processes and new ways of doing business, introducing new cross-sector value chains and infrastructures.