Abstract
In the health arena, open innovation approaches strive to address real-world complexity through driving multi-stakeholder collaborative activities that can better identify and respond to complex health needs. This paper will argue for the value of an open ecosystem innovation approach, one that explores the full implications of what it means to be “open” in a health innovation context. To these ends, the paper will outline the origins of open innovation in the health arena, suggesting that it has become an important site for pushing the limits of open methods and challenging mainstream conceptions of the targets of health innovation. Five guiding principles for open ecosystem innovation will then be proposed, drawing on learning from the Knowledge Exchange Hubs for the Creative Economy funded by the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council. These principles point to a configuration of open activities that are maximally sensitive to (1) knowledge diversity in innovation work; (2) the consequences of adopting an open-orientation across all stages of innovation programming; (3) the value of deepening and broadening the targets of innovation activity; (4) the role of mediation in supporting cross-sector partnerships; and, (5) the importance of operating in an adaptive and sustainable manner in the long-term. A follow-on project from the AHRC Hubs—Dementia Connect—sought to apply this learning to an important health focus: dementia and the role played by creative participation in delivering important health outcomes. Through Dementia Connect, the applicability of open ecosystem innovation thinking was assessed, revealing the conditions under which it might deliver innovation-led improvements to the quality of life for those living with a dementia diagnosis. A detailed blueprint for conducting open ecosystem innovation is then proposed in full—a new and comprehensive response to the complex reality of living with a dementia diagnosis today.
Highlights
TO OPEN INNOVATION IN HEALTHIn the health arena, open innovation approaches strive to address real-world complexity through driving multi-stakeholder collaborative activities that can better identify and respond to complex health needs
The emergence of open innovation models can be traced back over the last 40 years through changing attitudes to the sites, participants, and outputs of innovation-oriented work within industry: from a focus on business differentiation, through a focus on core competences, to an open innovation focus in which greater emphasis is placed on the acceleration of internal innovation activities and the expansion of external markets through reciprocal interactions with external partners (Chesbrough, 2003; Sargsyan et al, 2011)
This paper has addressed the development of five guiding principles for open ecosystem innovation and their application to the dementia and creativity arena through the research project Dementia Connect
Summary
Open innovation approaches strive to address real-world complexity through driving multi-stakeholder collaborative activities that can better identify and respond to complex health needs. The development of open approaches is still very much an ongoing process, with their full potential in the health arena not yet fully realised. The subject of this paper—a new model of open ecosystem innovation for the dementia and creativity arena—is one proposal for advancing that development
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