Learning Together For Local Innovation

Recoge: Part I: Addressing the issue of local innovation. - Part II: European regional learning cases. - Part III: Changing role of universities in promoting regional learning. - Part IV: Theoretical reflections on the learning region concept.

This volume highlights the importance of interactive, practice-based learning as a means to promote more thorough innovation dynamics in regional and national economies. Successful experiences in Scandanavia and southern European countries are examined, with insightful policy lessons extracted from each case.

Core concepts in education are changing. For example, professional performance or expertise is not uniquely the fruit of specialist knowledge acquired at professional schools, but the sum of influences exerted by a complex web of continuous learning opportunities for which an individual is well (or ill) prepared by their schools and their workplace. The key contributory factors to professional expertise are how professional schools connect to professional practice, how schools prepare graduates for continuous learning, and how the workplace endorses continuous development. Thus, the question this volume addresses—how to design learning and working environments that facilitate the integration of these three elements—is at the heart of contemporary pedagogical theory. The authors also ask a second vital question: how do we educate learners that go on to maximize their life’s learning opportunities by regulating their own ongoing learning? Learning at the Crossroads of Theory and Practice argues that with the theory of learning at a crossroads, this is an unprecedented opportunity for learning about learning. The book sheds light on different elements of this challenge: integrating theory and practice in business education, generating and fully exploiting workplace learning opportunities, and enriching our classrooms by coupling theoretical knowledge with the richness of real-life experience.

In recent years, social innovation has experienced a steep career. Numerous national governments and large organisations like the OECD, the European Commission and UNESCO have adopted the term. Social innovation basically means that people adopt new social practices in order to meet social needs in a different or more effective way. Prominent examples of the past are the Red Cross and the social welfare state or, at present, the internet 2.0 transforming our communication and cooperation schemes, requiring new management concepts, even empowering social revolutions. The traditional concept of innovation as successful new technological products needs fundamental rethinking in a society marked by knowledge and services, leading to a new and enriched paradigm of innovation. There is multiple evidence that social innovation will become of growing importance not only concerning social integration, equal opportunities and dealing with the greenhouse effects but also with regard to preserving and expanding the innovative capacity of companies and societies. While political authorities stress the social facets of social innovation, this book also encompasses its societal and systemic dimensions, collecting the scientific expertise of renowned experts and scholars from all over the world. Based on the contributions of the first world-wide science convention on social innovation from September 2011 in Vienna, the book provides an overview of scientific approaches to this still relatively new field. Forewords by Agnès HUBERT (Member of the Bureau of European Policy Advisers (BEPA) of the European Commission) and Antonella Noya (Senior Policy Analyst at OECD, manager of the OECD LEED Forum on Social Innovations)

Resilience has emerged as a recurrent notion to explain how territorial socio-economic systems adapt successfully (or not) to negative events. In this book, the authors use resilience as a bridging notion to connect different types of theoretical and empirical approaches to help understand the impacts of economic turbulence at the system and actor levels. The book provides a unique overview of the financial crisis and the important dimension of innovation dynamics for regional resilience. It also offers an engaging debate as to how regional resilience can be improved and explores the social aspects of vulnerability, resilience and innovation.

Agricultural research, extension and education can contribute greatly to enhancing agricultural production in a sustainable way and to reducing poverty in the developing world, but achievements have generally fallen short of expectations in Africa. In recent years, growing economic and demographic pressures - coupled with the entry of new market forces and actors - have created a need and an opportunity for more interactive approaches to development. Understanding the existing innovation processes, recognizing the potential for catalysing them and learning how to support joint innovation by different groups will be the key to success. This book covers new conceptual and methodological developments in agricultural innovation systems, and showcases recent on-the-ground experiences in different contexts in Africa. The contributions show how innovation is the outcome of social learning through interaction of individuals and organizations in both creating and applying knowledge. It brings examples of how space and incentives have been created to promote collaboration between farmers, research, extension and the private sector to develop better technologies and institutional arrangements that can alleviate poverty. In 25 broad-ranging chapters the book reflects cutting-edge thinking and practice in support of innovation processes in agriculture and management of natural resources.

Territorial Development and Action Research examines the role of action research within fields such as territorial development and innovation. Most researchers analyse these fields from the outside, developing a theoretical understanding of what should be done, but not of how to do it. Based on their own experience of territorial development processes from the inside out, James Karlsen and Miren Larrea argue that filling the gap regarding social relations in the innovation process makes it possible for researchers to engage in the processes taking place in the territory, thereby revealing how to make things work. This book will help researchers face the pressure to engage and play a useful role in the development of their host regions. It will help policy makers to continuously learn and redefine policy approaches and bring about collaboration through networks, programs and projects where researchers and practitioners in regional, local and urban development work together to construct territorial development. Readers will acquire a better understanding of micro-territorial development processes and the roles played by individuals and coalitions in endogenous development processes.

This book explores how complexity science and social simulation can be used to improve and inform policy-making in both research and innovation. Beginning with an introduction to conceptual definitions of complexity science and social simulation, the book demonstrates the validity of the underlying integrated research framework used throughout. It is then divided into two parts, with the first investigating the effects and impacts of policy making on the structure, composition and outputs of research and innovation networks using the agent-based SKIN platform (Simulating Knowledge Dynamics in Innovation Networks, http://cress.soc.surrey.ac.uk/SKIN/). The second half of the book discusses a research initiative funded by the Irish government focusing on innovation policy simulation for economic recovery. This consists of empirical research on Irish research and innovation networks, and SKIN-based simulations of technology transfer issues and the commercialization of research in areas with high potential for innovation and economic growth. The book concludes with reflections on the maturity and utility of an approach combining complexity science and social simulation for research and innovation policy. Joining Complexity Science and Social Simulation for Innovation Policy will be of particular interest to scientists concerned with innovation and complex systems, including economists, sociologists, and complexity researchers, as well as students and practitioners, such as innovation policymakers and innovation business managers.