Building Innovation Capacity

Important results from the project

The goal was to improve innovation capacity in the form of concrete innovative initiatives that support conditions for innovation in Swedish and Danish enterprises. A new form for a company-adapted, practical model for innovative solutions - Learning Labs - was created via a collaborative process. The model is based on Nordic values and traditions for collaborative, experienced-based, and democratic learning processes. New solutions for identified challenges in practice were tested and important factors for sustainable innovation capacity became explicitly clear.

Expected long term effects

Overall, the BIC project shows that an organization´s innovation ability is constituted by how capacities, capabilities, and external orientation are combined and employed to mobilize, transform, and use knowledge and ideas to bolster enterprises’ competitive advantage, and innovative performance. In the BIC project, we have shown that a Nordic learning model holds promise as a competence development method for the improvement of the capability dimension. Capability is a key feature of an organization´s ability to create stronger and more sustainable innovation.

Approach and implementation

Overall, the BIC project has been organized into two parts, one development part, and one research part. The research part focused on exploring the innovation capacity changes in the Swedish and Danish group samples emerging from the realized LLs using two types of measurements: 1. Survey development and test, 2. Case study analysis. The development part has focused on two main tasks: 1. Designing the structure and content of a Nordic learning model and method; 2. Applying the Nordic learning model aimed at improving innovation capacity in one Swedish and one Danish enterprise.