Solving Regionally Significant Industry Problems Workshop

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government participants and a recently developed regional innovation management “sandpit” framework to confront what
Solving Regionally Significant Industry Problems Workshop SRSIP SIG Conveners: Anton Kriz and William Westgate

SRSIP Special Interest Group (Inaugural Session - Brisbane 2015) Global regions confront big issues – few are more complex than the stakeholder and institutional issues of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. This session draws on ISPIM’s industry, university and government participants and a recently developed regional innovation management “sandpit” framework to confront what seems an inscrutable ongoing challenge of balancing the interests and ongoing viability of the Great Barrier Reef. Bringing the ISPIM community together to tackle such difficult place-based regional challenges adds an important new dimension to this and future conferences.

Solving Regionally Significant Industry Problems Workshop Series Background and aim: Processes around regional innovation systems and growth are advancing rapidly. The Europe Commission has recently adopted a smart specialisation platform (RIS3). The US has applied techniques such as Purdue University’s strategic doing and the Sirolli method. Australia similarly is advancing regional development platforms and has also worked toward identification and implementation of regionally significant innovation projects for improving regional innovation system initiatives and solving such complex problems. As part of this approach some regions have adopted a regional innovation management (RIM) framework for taking up this challenge. The latter method aligns well with ISPIM and uses a strategic innovation management platform to improve success. Treating regions like an entity or large organisation encourages policy makers to be more deliberate and addresses collective leadership responsibility for solving such a challenge. Offering a method to solve and implement such change is central to the proposed session and proposed ongoing SRSIP-SIG. Each region that hosts an ISPIM conference is confronted with their own localised regional challenges. The aim is to run a session at ISPIM events that focuses participants on solving a regionally significant ‘inscrutable’ industry driven problem. The problem will have been identified by the SRSIP- SIG conveners in collaboration with organisers and key stakeholders from the host region. The session targets members from ISPIM with diverse industry, academic and government experience (triple helix approach), aiming to combine such expertise with PhDs and early career researchers. The session will use a structured workshop process around RIM to help participants focus their efforts. The presenters are keen to make the session stimulating, inspiring and engaging in a way that also highlights how ISPIM members can invoke such change in their own regions. The challenge will not only be to solve the problem but to add major insights into how this regional solution could be effectively implemented. Methodology and design: The chairs of the SRSIP-SIG and proposed session have facilitated similar programs for regions facing equally challenging problems and projects. A stepwise model will be used to guide the session. Implementation science and understanding how to harness and lead change in such transformation efforts will be a priority. Knowledge from change management experts like John Kotter will support this approach as will primary research and studies on RIM and regional growth including innovation champion behaviour. The project is therefore as much about

execution as it is about ideation and processes. The first session at Brisbane is projected to be 120 minutes. The focus is not simply around the project itself but educating participants on how to solve these types of regionally significant inscrutable problems. The convenors will follow up and work with the agency that submitted the challenge to facilitate potential implementation of the findings. Bringing the Conference location into the actual event adds a unique and novel touch to ISPIM. Key stakeholders and participants: The SIG conveners will work closely with the local conference organisers to help identify a project of regional significance. For example, the Sunshine Coast (near Brisbane) is looking at the development of a major health precinct but they will need to base this on some area of specialisation. Selecting such a specialisation and implementing such a project is a real challenge. The SIG organisers have strong links to the Brisbane region and will be able to generate sufficient interest from stakeholders for the identification of the regionally significant project. Industry, academia and government working together is an important benefit of ISPIM. Young researchers and PhDs are capable of adding fresh insights and this is often underestimated. Bringing the three agencies together in such a challenging way with such young talent under the proposed SIG and a regional significant industry and localised problem will be a great way of furthering ISPIM’s development.