A focus on user-driven innovation in the Nordic region

The Nordic Innovation Centre (NICe) recently launched User-Driven Innovation as a new theme within its Nordic Innovation Policies’ focus area.

The organisation just invested 1.4 million Euro to support a portfolio of projects focusing on activities in support of user-driven innovation.

NICe was set up by the Nordic Council of Ministers to promote an innovative and knowledge-intensive business sector in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.

A recent call for expression of interest (deadline: 31 January 2007) provides some interesting reading on the innovation strategy in Northern Europe. Make sure to read the associated Word document.

Another worthwhile read is “Understanding User-Driven Innovation” (pdf, 399 kb, 33 pages), which was excerpted from a briefing paper which was prepared for the first meeting of the Northern Dimension Learning Forum on User-Driven Innovation (NDLF-UDI) – a project initiative of the Nordic Council of Ministers.

“The project aims to facilitate policymakers in the region to develop increased competencies in this field of innovation policy, as well as to support and inspire each other in defining the policy rationale and possible mechanisms to catalyse user-driven innovation.

The briefing paper was prepared to provide a general overview on the area of user-driven innovation, and to provide a basis for discussion of the policy rationale. The paper was geared toward a policymaking audience and is meant to serve only as an overview on the topic and a basis for discussion, and therefore does not provide the level of depth, analysis or academic rigor that would be expected from a research document.”

(Thank you Irene for the lead)