The Situational Picture of Innovation supports regional knowledge management. Intersectoral analysis workshops and commonly recognized data needs seal together a vast scale of information, interpretations and networks. While the amount of data increases, the need for a joint process that squeezes the bits into a diamond grows.
Today sharing information is easier than ever, thanks to internet, social media and different kinds of cloud services. At the same time the amount of information available is increasing continuously. However, the information in itself is not the key. What counts, is the utilization and interpretation of the information.
The Situational Picture of Innovation conducted yearly in the Tampere Region is a structured and proactive knowledge management process which gathers information about the current status of different, innovation related phenomena in the region. Signals of change in the field of innovation are identified, and joint interpretation by the region’s actors is created on their significance to the region’s development and future.
Essential part of the process are the interpretation workshops which invites the regional stake-holders to evaluate the information gathered during the process. In the workshops the data is brought together with the regional actors’ expertise and exposed to conversations.
From shared situational understanding to smarter decisions
The situational picture formed from current data, from interpretations drawn from it and from knowledge management practices will create a basis for the planning of the region’s own strategic innovation policy, for decision-making and for the implementation of decisions.
The first situational picture was created by core team of stakeholders in the region in 2013, and it has subsequently been republished and expanded every year. The work is put into practice by the Council of Tampere Region.
The Situational Picture of Innovation has been selected as good practice within the InnoBridge project. The model is reproducible for other regions that actively aim to develop regional management of the innovation on the basis of the co-creation and knowledge of the actors.
The Situational Picture of Innovation activities is monitoring phenomena in the field of innovation that actors in the Tampere region can influence in the short and medium term and that have jointly been identified as strategically important. The information base is pooled from open data and materials followed by the innovation actors themselves, which makes the process efficient in terms of both costs and work resources. The system and operating model of situational picture is developed dynamically through iteration rounds and learning by doing.
The module-like set of indicators consists of the up-to-date monitoring of about 50 indicators. The main themes of the situational picture are RDI funding, institutions of higher education, growth companies, the international dimension, innovation platforms, digitalization and value network capability. In addition, the situational picture is strengthened by means of in-depth analyses, the need for which emerges from the signals provided by the indicators, the interpretations made by the network and the future outlook of the environment.
Fast-moving world and digital disruption open doors to new approaches in knowledge management
The process of the situational picture also aims to answer the challenges rising from the increasing amount of the available data, the out-of-date nature of the traditional, statistical data and the opportunities of new, versatile sources of information. For example, the majority of the official statistical data are updated with notable time-delays. In addition, the data provided through the statistics is not always available with desired geographical attributes or the classifications in general do not recognize the observed phenomena (e.g. circular economy, startups).
The ever evolving world of big data, open data, machine learning and artificial intelligence offer new possibilities also to the public sector officials to provide information. In addition, the rise of the fourth industrial revolution means not only increasing amount of data but also new ways to commit operatives into it. (Almost) automatically born data enables to use more human resource into analysis and knowledge ecosystem building.
The Council of Tampere Region is eager to study and test new tools within the knowledge management processes and The Situational Picture of Innovation is an excellent arena to pilot the new approaches available.
