#ENRIITCyourCoffee Season 4 first episode with ESS Innovation ecosystem

The first episode of our fourth season welcomed us back to the office with Jimmy Andersen from European Spallation Source (ESS) on the topic of innovation ecosystems on the example of ESS.

Jimmy shared with us his pandemic activity, which was a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) course on corporate innovative ecosystems. This episode took the approach of reviewing definitions and views on what exactly is innovation on the example of the ESS Innovation Ecosystem, that is currently being developed.  Jimmy referred us to a great definition of such an abstract term as innovation is already given by MIT scholars here in this video. Jimmy emphasises that innovation is the process of taking ideas from inception to impact and overall unpacks the abstract nature of innovation.

A key takeaway is that technology is the enabler, not the innovation itself.

Another key point is that a successful and sustainable innovation ecosystem consists of its anchoring point and i-loops. I-loops stand for innovation loops of experimentation and evaluation, which often form out of smaller innovation loops. Hear Jimmy elaborate it with a drawing at 08:20 in the video. Additionally, innovation can be triggered both by a solution and a problem meaning, a problem will make one think outside of the box and a solution can trigger a tech transfer like with the non-invasive beam monitoring system in ESS.

The five stakeholder model of MIT is the reference for the foundation of the ESS innovation ecosystem:

• Corporate
• Entrepreneurs
• Academia
• Risk capital
• Government

Jimmy compares the ESS model with the MIT model and adds that ESS could not facilitate all stakeholders so the innovation ecosystem at ESS will be an open and collaborative one.

Lastly, Jimmy outlines the innovation opportunity space at ESS by approaching it from a problem and solution novelty matrix, which can be best seen at 14:25 in the video. Make sure you check it out to see if your novel problem needs a simple solution and what are the necessary steps to innovation.

The discussion starts at 17:52 and covers questions on intellectual property in innovation ecosystems and the user’s place in the stakeholders lineup.