Innovation

Rising, shining, and sinking are part of the economic dynamics of countries, regions, sectors, ecosystems, and of course organisations. At all these levels, timely innovations will need to be realized to remain competitive as an economy, to be relevant, and to contribute to solving the societal challenges we face. Innovation (and broader long-term adaptability) requires a good balance between exploration - finding entirely new directions for solutions - and exploitation - converting knowledge and skills into economic activity, functional applications, and, not to forget, their scaling.

Through our research, we aim to help dispel two misconceptions about innovation. Firstly, innovation is often predominantly associated with technological innovation, preferably stemming from the genius of individuals or individual organisations. Experience shows that innovation also requires organisational innovation (and innovations from public organisations) and thrives particularly in open and semi-open innovation environments where diverse parties are able to engage in productive collaboration focused on innovation. Government policies aimed at innovation (and broader research, innovation, and often entrepreneurship in extension) therefore require not only policies aimed at the individual researcher, entrepreneur, or organisation, but increasingly focus on fostering the necessary cooperation for that innovation and adaptability.

A second misconception is that innovation is mainly the responsibility of businesses. This is by no means the case. Innovation itself, along with its application and impact in various societal domains, also calls for an innovative government that can help shape the conditions for, realization, and application of innovation and create public-private environments where knowledge exchange and innovation can thrive. Since its inception, Dialogic has contributed to the innovation capacity of the Netherlands through a variety of studies and advice. A few examples include:

• Evaluations in innovation policy
  The Dutch government has an extensive innovation toolkit. Dialogic has a proven track record in evaluating individual innovation schemes such as WBSO, PPS bonus scheme, and Invest-NL, as well as comprehensive policy programmes like the Top Sectors Policy, space policy, or the Smart Industry Programme. Evaluating such policy packages requires a different approach. Together with SEO, Dialogic worked on a new evaluation standard (Dare to learn, keep measuring).
• Exploratory studies
  Dialogic also assists numerous clients with forward-looking analyses in very diverse domains. For example, we supported the Ministry of I&W with system analyses for the aviation sustainability. We collaborated with KplusV on determining the strategy for Brainport Development and assist the municipality of Almere in developing its own higher education infrastructure with a unique focus on sustainability and circularity.
• Policy support and advice
  Based on its track record, Dialogic is well-positioned to directly support policymakers with innovation issues. For instance, we supported the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science with an analysis of research and innovation ecosystems to support the Growth Strategy. We supported, among others, the (conditionally approved) Growth Fund application for self-thinking molecular systems, analysed the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on R&D (outsourcing) expenditures for the Board of Directors of TNO, and developed a policy assessment framework for their investments in field labs for the Province of Zuid Holland/Innovation Quarter and MRDH.