Periodic Reporting for period 1 - DCP (Design Challenge Pilot)
Reporting period: 2019-09-01 to 2021-02-28
The purpose of the ‘Design Challenge Pilot’ (DCP) project is to enhance the co-creation philosophy to the service delivery system of urban challenge solving, through the inclusion of innovative SMEs in the design process. During the implementation of the project, the 3 partners used the Twinning Advanced methodology to peer-review a co-creation procedure of setting up a solution that addresses a local challenge, satisfying the affected target groups, capitalising the expertise of the innovative SMEs of the region/country and enabling local authorities to both improve the use of public money and raise their citizens’ satisfaction rates.
As a result, the consortium members came up with a backbone of a “design service” offered to the local ecosystem by innovation agencies, that will enable cities, SMEs and citizens to effectively work together for the common good. It is about a procedure where all the aforementioned parts collaborate to “frame the challenge”, “ideate possible solutions”, “prototype” the best of them, “test” them in real life and adopt the ultimate one that satisfies the most, all stakeholders involved.
This new service was piloted in Greece, in order to test it in solving a social challenge by making maximum use of the local SMEs’ expertise. The final deliverable (Design Options Paper – DOP) is developed as the result of the peer-learning activities and the Pilot Action within DCP project, aiming to serve as a useful guidebook to any innovation support agency in coping with social problems and SMEs activation.
As a result, the consortium members came up with a backbone of a “design service” offered to the local ecosystem by innovation agencies, that will enable cities, SMEs and citizens to effectively work together for the common good. It is about a procedure where all the aforementioned parts collaborate to “frame the challenge”, “ideate possible solutions”, “prototype” the best of them, “test” them in real life and adopt the ultimate one that satisfies the most, all stakeholders involved.
This new service was piloted in Greece, in order to test it in solving a social challenge by making maximum use of the local SMEs’ expertise. The final deliverable (Design Options Paper – DOP) is developed as the result of the peer-learning activities and the Pilot Action within DCP project, aiming to serve as a useful guidebook to any innovation support agency in coping with social problems and SMEs activation.
The purpose of the DCP project was to develop and test a process for tackling an urban social challenge with the active engagement of local SMEs.
The 3 project partners (Business and Cultural Development Centre – KEPA, Cardiff Metropolitan University – PDR and Estonian Design Centre – EDC) worked together in peer-reviewing related cases and good practices, while applying the Twinning+ methodology, which led to the elaboration of a tool guide that can assist any innovation agency in addressing a social challenge. Based on the successful method of Design Thinking, a procedure that follows certain stages, ends up in finding solutions to a diagnosed urban social challenge by placing the citizens in the centre. Within this process, the contribution of the local SMEs is vital and this is the innovative – and equally challenging – aspect of this project.
In order to test the proposed methodology, a Pilot Action called “Super CitizenS(ME) Lab” was set up by all the partners and run in Thessaloniki – Greece. KEPA chose to work on a challenge related to the common profile of the civil society organisations and their role in the local ecosystem. The pilot activity was deployed in a series of co-creation activities, where local CSOs and SMEs came together and shared their expertise-knowledge-experience for finding solutions to specific challenges.
All the above-mentioned activities ended up to the formulation of a guide on how innovation support agencies can cope with social problems, with the active involvement of SMEs in the whole process. The Design Options Paper (DOP) serves as a useful hand-book that includes all the basic information regarding every stage of the procedure, the available tools that can be used and practical guidelines.
The project’s results and the DOP were presented at the online final event that was held on 26.02.2021. Furthermore, they were also disseminated through the partners’ networks, relevant projects and communication channels.
The 3 project partners (Business and Cultural Development Centre – KEPA, Cardiff Metropolitan University – PDR and Estonian Design Centre – EDC) worked together in peer-reviewing related cases and good practices, while applying the Twinning+ methodology, which led to the elaboration of a tool guide that can assist any innovation agency in addressing a social challenge. Based on the successful method of Design Thinking, a procedure that follows certain stages, ends up in finding solutions to a diagnosed urban social challenge by placing the citizens in the centre. Within this process, the contribution of the local SMEs is vital and this is the innovative – and equally challenging – aspect of this project.
In order to test the proposed methodology, a Pilot Action called “Super CitizenS(ME) Lab” was set up by all the partners and run in Thessaloniki – Greece. KEPA chose to work on a challenge related to the common profile of the civil society organisations and their role in the local ecosystem. The pilot activity was deployed in a series of co-creation activities, where local CSOs and SMEs came together and shared their expertise-knowledge-experience for finding solutions to specific challenges.
All the above-mentioned activities ended up to the formulation of a guide on how innovation support agencies can cope with social problems, with the active involvement of SMEs in the whole process. The Design Options Paper (DOP) serves as a useful hand-book that includes all the basic information regarding every stage of the procedure, the available tools that can be used and practical guidelines.
The project’s results and the DOP were presented at the online final event that was held on 26.02.2021. Furthermore, they were also disseminated through the partners’ networks, relevant projects and communication channels.
This project begins with a recognition that we live and work in a rapidly changing world, and with these changes we face an ever-expanding array of social issues. The priorities of the social issues we face change with our local and regional contexts, and so it makes sense to look to local resources when designing policies and mechanisms to achieve positive social impact. In addition, it makes sense to look at areas of current investment made by local and regional governments and assess how these expenditures might also stimulate positive social impact.
A common area of significant investment made by local and regional governments is in innovation support to Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs). This innovation investment typically aims to assist SMEs in achieving growth in order to increase employment and local standards of living. Indeed, it is in the provision of employment that many SMEs recognise as their main social contribution. However, many innovation support programmes do more than simply provide monetary investment for research and development; many innovation programmes have an ambition to upskill SMEs’ innovative capacity, to enable them to address new problems in new ways, and to move beyond their current markets through the provision of new to company or new to market products and services. Where this ambition is successful, the result is a local community with new skills, and the potential to apply these skills to local social issues. Therefore, this project has raised important questions on how do we use what SMEs have learned, and how, in future, do we orchestrate innovation support to SMEs to develop positive social impact? And further, how do we build in the requisite ongoing relationships to understand SMEs social contribution post innovation support?
In order to begin to address these key questions, this project has built on the success of Design Thinking as a process to bring stakeholders together to develop solutions to complex and wicked problems. In this case SMEs and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) worked together on the Super CitizenS(ME) Lab project to propose potential and viable social impact projects that could be delivered in collaboration between the parties. These workshops demonstrate that the innovative capability within SMEs can be redirected towards positive social impact, and that Design Thinking activities present a useful approach in stimulating the required activity. This is an important first step in harnessing SME innovative capability for social impact and provides an opportunity for innovation policy that benefits SMEs, CSO and governmental social impact ambitions. With the knowledge that there is potential for SMEs to contribute to social impact, a remaining question from an innovation policy perspective is how to motivate such SME social participation? With the pilot action, potential SME motivations included raising their CSR profile, the acquisition of new skills, the extension of their network by cooperating with CSOs and the promotion of their work to new audiences. These drivers can be built upon by governments through the requirements to demonstrate social impact as a condition of innovation funding. Such requirements additionally have the potential to be beneficial to SME competitiveness, as it stimulates an ability to better articulate social impact, which can in turn lead to improved performance in contract tendering in competition with larger organisations that are well-versed in presenting such social agendas.
A common area of significant investment made by local and regional governments is in innovation support to Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs). This innovation investment typically aims to assist SMEs in achieving growth in order to increase employment and local standards of living. Indeed, it is in the provision of employment that many SMEs recognise as their main social contribution. However, many innovation support programmes do more than simply provide monetary investment for research and development; many innovation programmes have an ambition to upskill SMEs’ innovative capacity, to enable them to address new problems in new ways, and to move beyond their current markets through the provision of new to company or new to market products and services. Where this ambition is successful, the result is a local community with new skills, and the potential to apply these skills to local social issues. Therefore, this project has raised important questions on how do we use what SMEs have learned, and how, in future, do we orchestrate innovation support to SMEs to develop positive social impact? And further, how do we build in the requisite ongoing relationships to understand SMEs social contribution post innovation support?
In order to begin to address these key questions, this project has built on the success of Design Thinking as a process to bring stakeholders together to develop solutions to complex and wicked problems. In this case SMEs and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) worked together on the Super CitizenS(ME) Lab project to propose potential and viable social impact projects that could be delivered in collaboration between the parties. These workshops demonstrate that the innovative capability within SMEs can be redirected towards positive social impact, and that Design Thinking activities present a useful approach in stimulating the required activity. This is an important first step in harnessing SME innovative capability for social impact and provides an opportunity for innovation policy that benefits SMEs, CSO and governmental social impact ambitions. With the knowledge that there is potential for SMEs to contribute to social impact, a remaining question from an innovation policy perspective is how to motivate such SME social participation? With the pilot action, potential SME motivations included raising their CSR profile, the acquisition of new skills, the extension of their network by cooperating with CSOs and the promotion of their work to new audiences. These drivers can be built upon by governments through the requirements to demonstrate social impact as a condition of innovation funding. Such requirements additionally have the potential to be beneficial to SME competitiveness, as it stimulates an ability to better articulate social impact, which can in turn lead to improved performance in contract tendering in competition with larger organisations that are well-versed in presenting such social agendas.