A report of the international workshop „Innovation cultures – challenge and learning strategy“, Prague, 2nd-4th June 2005.

The organizers of the workshop were the Centre for STS Studies at Institute of Philosophy, Prague (Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic), and the Centre for Social Innovation, Vienna. The encounter was co-funded by ASO (Austrian Science and Research Liaison Office) Brno and Austrian Cultural Forum Prague. 16 foreign and 6 Czech participants presented their statements in the workshop. The task of the workshop was to analyze the actual conceptual issues of the innovation field.

Innovation activities occur in the specific social and economic context including the cultural and political traditions of the respective national or otherwise defined community. The major role is played by the historically developed systems of education, culture, entrepreneurship, or governance, “life practices” at large. In this context, the concept of “innovation culture” may be applied into the analysis. Innovation culture – as a distinct set of values and practices – is tightly embedded in a broader culture of the specific national, social, and cultural communities.

In all of Europe, the need is felt to make “European” innovation culture more dynamic (Europe is seen to be too rigid, unflexible, stagnant), link it more tightly to users and market, overcome the existing gap. Such efforts were politically conceptualized into the “Lisbon strategy”.

In the climate of overall pressure on application and commercial effects of research, the “Central-European” model of education, research and innovation is often criticised. The academic and exclusive nature of education and knowledge production as well as rigidity and inflexibility of entrepreneurial environment is considered to be the most relevant weakness. This criticism has manifold validity in the case of transitional Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) considering their recent history. Transitional countries still have a relatively low innovation performance, but this situation may also be interpreted as an opportunity for determining the appropriate innovation strategy for future.

The stimulating issues were addressed by the participants of the workshop in manifold ways. Thematically, the papers may be structured into several groups. There were papers focussing on the broad social context of innovations, hence targeting the issues of the very innovation culture (Josef Hochgerner, Karel Müller, Harald Rohracher, Klaus Schuch). One of the workshop´s priorities was the conceptual and methodological issues of innovation policy (Agnes Fesus, Adolf Filáček, Imre Hronszky, Michael Rogers, Howard Rush, Michael Schmidt, Paul Simmonds). The innovation policy theme was specified on the example of “countries” innovation reports (Miroslav Janeček, Gerd Schienstock, Peter Stanovnik, Štefan Zajac). To the core innovation agenda undoubtedly belong both the concepts of knowledge/technology transfer (Henry Etzkowitz, Balázs Lengyel, Anna Vitásková, Marzenna Weresa) and competitiveness/catching-up (Balázs Borsi, Anna Kadeřábková, Jiří Loudín).

In the discussion on a broader social/cultural framework of innovations, it appeared that the social and cultural resources of high innovation dynamics may be of very different natures. Excellent innovation performance may be stimulated by a pressure on overall flexibilization and thus decreasing certainty, but it may be based also on the systems with strong social and cultural stability. Such stability may strengthen trust and encourage activities with a high risk potential. Nations, societies and cultures have differently developed relationships between dynamics and stability, flexibility and steadiness. For various modes of their configurations, the concept of “flexurity” has been coined recently. Flexibility of social/economic structure may go hand in hand with stability and firmness in system of standards and norms. The configurations of these factors are nation- and culture specific and their uniqueness belongs to the most relevant resources of development.

Culture is a realm of meanings, symbols, institutions. The speakers stressed the role of institutional change and institutional reflexivity in innovation field. For the production of novelty, it is decisive to be capable of adaptive learning and be able to combine both the national and international, traditional and new resources. The problem of technology and knowledge transfer is for Europe of vital interest, not to say for CEEC. The presence of Henry Etzkowitz of course stimulated a discussion on the new events in the interface university-industry. Etzkowitz mentioned the fact that some leading universities (Stanford) developed such a strong position in the relationship toward industry that they assume the leading part in the interaction. Based on strong knowledge supply, they are able to set the rules and modes of intellectual property rights – e.g. whether to establish its own start-up firm or opt for licensing. A crucial role in transfer is played by the search mechanisms for new solutions and by the students who have at large a positive attitude to an application effort. The speakers also discussed the various concepts of knowledge transfer at regional, national and international level.

At present, the concepts of competitiveness and catching-up are quite frequently used; these are especially stimulating for Central Europe. Moving ahead means for Central European countries (as for the others) mainly to focus on knowledge and innovation (quality-based competitiveness). It is an even more difficult task in the period when the entire world “is under reconstruction”. What is recommended is to be able to adapt and master the universal competition/innovation concepts but at the same time to make them country/culture specific/sensitive. This was exemplified on the transformation/innovation story of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Slovenia as well on the case of one of the world´s competitive leaders Finland.

For more detailed information on the workshop, see http://www.flu.cas.cz/stss/vse2/en/inovation_cultures.html. The book comprising the papers presented on the workshop has appeared with the publishing house Filosofia, Prague.